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.
