January 16, 1865---Overthrowing The Union: Sabotage at Fort Fisher?

JANUARY 16, 1865:          

General William Tecumseh Sherman issues General Order Number 15, specifying that all Freedmen’s families be given “Forty Acres and a Mule.”

Celebrations over the fall of Fort Fisher are dampened when news is heard of the disastrous explosion of the fort’s magazine. At first blamed on Confederate saboteurs, the explosion is later put down to a tragic accident. More than two hundred men of both sides are killed in the blast. Many of them are never identified.

The fact that the explosion is immediately blamed on sabotage is indicative of the deterioration of the Confederate war effort. No longer able to mount effective battlefield challenges, the Confederacy is increasingly embracing guerrilla warfare and terror tactics as alternative means of inflicting damage on the Union.