February 22, 1865---The Fall of Wilmington, North Carolina

FEBRUARY 22, 1865:       

The Fall of Wilmington, North Carolina:

         

It is Washington’s Birthday, the official fourth Independence Day of the Confederate States of America.

The end of the Civil War appears on the horizon as the city of Wilmington falls to Union forces. 

Throughout the war, Wilmington has been an important port on the eastern seaboard of the Confederacy.  Protected by the massive guns of Fort Fisher thirty miles seaward on the Cape Fear River, the inland port has been the only Confederate port where the Union blockade was almost completely ineffective. 

As the war lengthened, and more and more ports fell to landward assaults, Wilmington’s importance as the Confederacy’s link to Europe and the Caribbean has only grown.  Millions of tons of supplies reach the South through Wilmington, even as it becomes the only port that remains open to the blockade runners.

With the fall of Fort Fisher in January, the port is shut off, ensuring that the Confederacy’s days are surely numbered. But the city itself remains a critical supply dump, collection point and rail hub, keeping supplies flowing to the Army of Northern Virginia and to Richmond and Petersburg.

Although small, the factories of Wilmington become more and more critical in late 1864, turning raw materials into blankets, boots, shoes, bullets, guns, first aid kits, and foodstuffs for the Richmond-Petersburg front. The South’s war machine, though faltering, rumbles on at Wilmington.

So, by any measure, the fall of Wilmington is an unmitigated disaster for the Confederacy. Even those most hard-bitten Confederates who’ve insisted that the loss of heroic Charleston “was in and of itself of not very great importance” are stunned into silence by the collapse of Wilmington. “Scott’s Anaconda” has tightened its last coil. The Confederacy is dying.

A hue and cry goes up when word reaches Richmond that General Braxton Bragg has given up the city virtually without a fight, especially when Hoke’s spirited defense at Forks Road becomes known.

For his part, Bragg excuses himself by saying that he only followed orders --- that Robert E. Lee ordered him to abandon Wilmington. Lee’s retort, that Bragg’s pessimistic reports about conditions at Wilmington actively influenced this decision, goes unanswered.

Enraged members of the Confederate Congress call for Bragg’s head on a pike. Accusations fly that Bragg is a Union agent provocateur.  

No evidence exists that Bragg is a Union agent. But there is plenty of evidence that Bragg is some things worse --- incompetent at command, inflexible, difficult, unimaginative, rude to his fellows, and, most of all, a man defeated psychologically if not militarily --- and his blockheaded refusal to aid in the defense of Fort Fisher stands out as a glaring example of his unfitness for command.

His ready abandonment of Wilmington has compounded the Confederacy’s woes a thousandfold. Without Wilmington, the Confederacy has no manufacturing base left save the overstressed Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond and a few small sweatshop-type factories in Petersburg.

Without the railheads at Wilmington, there is no longer any countryside from which to draw raw materials for war or survival. On a map the Confederacy still looks vast. In reality, the Trans-Mississippi is long isolated, the Florida peninsula is cut off, and Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama are in flames, being ground up in the maw of the relentlessly advancing Union armies even as Wilmington falls.

Only a few pockets of resistance --- an elongated ovoid stretching from Weldon in the south to Richmond in the north, and an ill-defined area along the Virginia-North Carolina border --- are still unquestionably in Confederate hands.

In most circumstances, Bragg likely would have been dismissed after the debacle at Fort Fisher. If not Fort Fisher, the fall of Wilmington should have ended his career. But again, his long friendship with Jefferson Davis saves him.  

Jefferson Davis, for his part, is losing touch with reality. Like Adolf Hitler during a Spring yet to be eighty years in the future, Davis has adopted a bunker mentality. While he does not scream and rave at his generals nor shoot or cashier them, his reaction to criticism is an imperious disdain. He issues orders to commands unable to respond, and plans offensives with troops no longer available. 

With the fall of Wilmington, Robert E. Lee, the newly-named General-in-Chief insists that Bragg be consequenced. Davis briefly considers sending Bragg to the Trans-Mississippi, but then relents. He does not wish to wound his old friend.

Lee himself, as General-in-Chief, could dismiss Bragg, but he defers to his President. Lee also remains courteous to Bragg, when most Confederate leaders begin to abuse him.

Lee has war plans. Lee knows that he has almost no resources with which to fight Grant and Sherman. Still, he does have some manpower and enough cannon, powder, shot, shell, cap and ball to inflict damage on the Union if he can reorganize his forces effectively.

Lee is gambling that a forceful enough blow against the Union will cause the worm to turn, that the Copperheads and Peace Democrats will be revivified, and that Lincoln will be discredited in the eyes of a shocked Union public. If this happens he may be able to midwife an independent Confederacy if not on the battlefield then through negotiations.   

For weeks Lee has been insisting that he needs a subordinate --- Joseph E. Johnston --- who is familiar with managing large bodies of troops and who understands large-scale battle strategy. Davis, who hates Johnston, has been refusing to reappoint Johnston to command.

Even Lee admits that Johnston may be overcautious, but Davis’ oft-suggested alternative --- Bragg --- has proven himself a defeatist.

Lee and Davis meet, as they do most days, but this day their meeting degenerates into a shouting match. Word of the altercation in the Confederate White House spreads quickly.

Within a few hours an angry delegation of Confederate Representatives and Senators descends on Davis, castigating him for arguing with Lee, and insisting that Johnston be reappointed to command.  Words such as resignation and impeachment and coup d’etat are uttered. The idea of a bill to replace Davis with Lee and to name Lee as Dictator is broached.  When Lee hears of this idea he quickly quashes it as unacceptable, both to him personally and under law.

Davis, isolated, with no political allies, and with no options, at last promises the Congressional Delegation that he will “consider” their demand to name Johnston to a new command.  And then, for a few days, he does nothing.