The Maine bugle ... campaign; 1-5 Jan. 1894-Oct. 1898 - Maine.gov

A MAN FROM MAINE. 63
" Their respective commanders, Admiral Porter and General
Terry,
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vied in their commendation of each other. Each seemed
more anxious to do justice to the other than to claim anything
for himself."
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" General Beauregard, a few days before, pronounced it [the
fort] impregnable."
" General Whiting had three wounds in the thigh. Colonel
Lamb also, who had gone into the fort with re-enforccments
and to relieve General Whiting on Sunday, is wounded."
The history of the Civil War docs not afford a parallel to
the successful assault on Fort P'isher, and the conflicts of other
lands would be searched in vain for its counterpart, for in no
war until the Crimean had the system of earthwork defenses
been tested, and in the Crimea there is no instance of a suc-
cessful assault upon any work till it had been regularly approached
by elaborate and protracted siege operations. For the first time
a really formidable earthwork was carried by a direct assault,
and in a military view, therefore, the storming of Fort Fisher is
probably entitled to be reckoned the most brilliant, as it surely
was the most remarkable victory of the war.
From the facts that have been set down in this paper, does it
not occur to the reader's sense of justice that Terr\-, in failing
to acknowledge Ames' services, and by suppressing his name in
the recital that was about to go before the country, and one that
would be sure to make a wrong impression that only iiistory
could correct, did a great injustice to a gallant officer? If Terry
had stated that the fighting and leadership of the troops had
devolved on Ames, who led the charge over the walls of Fort
Fisher with his division and remained fighting with it, and the
other troops that were sent to him, until the close of the action,
he (Terry) would have told a plain and truthful tale; but when
he put his own name forward as personally supervising the con-
flict—except within the scope of his action as already stated
he did a wrong to the actual hero of the fight, whose name
should be a household word throughout the land.