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Lot 49
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General Adelbert Ames Sends Captured Confederate Flags and Sword from His Successful Assault on Fort Fisher to Friend from Maine
General Adelbert Ames Sends Captured Confederate Flags and Sword from His Successful Assault on Fort Fisher to Friend from Maine
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Civil War



General Adelbert Ames sends Confederate flags and a sword captured at Fort Fisher on the North Carolina coast to his friend from Maine Ezra B. French, an auditor in the Treasury Department in Washington. Ames asked French to give one of the flags to Anson P. Morrill (1803-1887), former Governor and Congressman from Maine and the brother of U.S. Senator Lot M. Morrill.

 

ADELBERT AMES, Autograph Letter Signed, to Ezra B. French, February 9, [1865], Fort Fisher, [North Carolina]. 1 p., 5" x 8.25". Tear on fold, affecting signature; pasted to backing paper.

 

Complete Transcript

                                                                        Ft. Fisher / Feb 9th

            My dear Mr. French I send you by the Capt of the Steamship Atlantic—Capt Grey—two rebel flags and a sword captured at Ft. F. and wish you would accept the sword and one of the flags from me as mementos of this Event.

            The second flag I would like Hon. A. P. Morril to have. If inconvenient to send it to him keep it till I come to W. (if I ever do!).

                                                                        Yours truly

A. Ames

Hon EB. French

2d Auditor Treasury Dept.

 

Historical Background

Wilmington, North Carolina, was the last major port open to the Confederacy on the Atlantic Ocean. Fort Fisher was a Confederate earthwork fortification at the mouth of the Cape Fear River that protected access to the river and the port of Wilmington. Blockade runners could sail to the Bahamas, Bermuda, or Nova Scotia to trade cotton for needed supplies for the Army of Northern Virginia. Fort Fisher was the last major Confederate stronghold on the Atlantic coast and boasted twenty-two cannon facing the ocean and twenty-five cannon facing the land approaches.

 

After a failed attempt in late December 1864 to capture the fort through a combination of naval bombardment and ground assault, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant relieved Major General Benjamin F. Butler of command of the expedition for disobeying direct orders by calling off the attack on Fort Fisher. Butler declared that the fort was impregnable. Grant replaced Butler with Major General Edward Ord and sent Major General Alfred H. Terry for a second assault on Fort Fisher.

 

Terry commanded 9,000 troops and Rear Admiral David D. Porter returned with nearly sixty ships for naval support. Terry sent one division of U.S. Colored Troops to hold off Confederate reinforcements, while his other division under the command of Brigadier General Adelbert Ames moved down the peninsula to attack Fort Fisher from the land, while Admiral Porter’s force of 2,000 sailors and marines attacked the fort’s seaward face. Terry landed his forces on January 13, and two days later, Porter’s gunboats opened fire on the fort. On January 15, Ames personally led the second wave of his assault and Confederate sharpshooters killed or wounded several of his aides. The battle raged for hours within the fort, and all of Ames’s brigade commanders and many of his regimental leaders were killed or wounded. At 9:30 p.m. Confederate General Alfred M. Colquitt landed to take command from the wounded commander who was being evacuated. By that time, all of the Confederate seaward batteries had been silenced, and the Union forces controlled the northern wall of the fort. Ames ordered a flanking maneuver outside the land wall of the fort to come up behind Confederate defenders of the last traverse within the fort. Colquitt and his staff rushed back to their boats and fled moments before Union forces seized the wharf.  For their actions in the battle, fifty-one soldiers, sailors, and marines received the Medal of Honor.

 

On February 5, 1865, Major General John M. Schofield ordered the captain of the Steamship Atlantic to pick up ammunition at Fortress Monroe and deliver it, with approximately 2,000 troops and cargo to Fort Fisher in North Carolina. Captain Alfred G. Gray was the captain of the Atlantic, which an officer in Schofield’s command described as “the crack ship of the Collins Line of New York and Liverpool packets” that had “led the van of the ocean greyhounds in the days of wooden hulls and sidewheels.”

Adelbert Ames (1835-1933) was born in Maine and worked briefly as a merchant seaman on his father’s ship. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1861 and received a commission in the artillery. Seriously wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run, he received the brevet rank of Major and later the Medal of Honor for his actions. He fought in the Peninsular Campaign in 1862 with the artillery, then obtained command of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry in August 1862. He led them in the Battle of Fredericksburg and served as an aide to General George G. Meade in the Chancellorsville campaign. He received promotion to brigadier general and commanded a corps at the Battle of Gettysburg. After the battle, the men of the 20th Maine presented Ames with their battle flag in recognition of his leadership. Ames served under Major General Benjamin F. Butler in the siege of Petersburg. For his actions at the Second Battle of Fort Fisher in January 1865, he received a brevet promotion to major general and a promotion to brigadier general in the Regular Army. In 1868, Congress appointed Ames to be provisional governor of Mississippi, an office he held until 1870, when the Mississippi legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate. While in Washington, he married Blanche Butler, the daughter of his former commander Benjamin F. Butler, and they had six children. He was elected governor of Mississippi in 1874 and served until 1876. Facing impeachment by a Democratic legislature, Ames resigned in exchange for their dropping the charges. After leaving office, Ames settled briefly in Northfield, Minnesota, then moved to New York City and Massachusetts. In 1898, he served as brigadier general of volunteers during the Spanish-American War in Cuba. At his death, he was the last-surviving full-rank general from the Civil War.

 

Ezra B. French (1810-1880) was born in New Hampshire and studied law in Bath and Plymouth, New Hampshire. After gaining admission to the bar in 1833, he opened a practice in Maine, successively in Portland, Waldoboro, and Nobleboro. He served in the Maine House of Representatives from 1838 to 1840 and in the Maine Senate from 1842 to 1845. He was the Secretary of State of Maine from 1846 to 1849, and helped organize the Republican Party in the state in 1856. Maine voters elected him as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one term from 1859 to 1861. French served as a member of the Peace Convention held in Washington in February 1861 that sought to avert the Civil War. In August 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed French as second auditor of the Treasury Department, a position he held until his death.

 

 


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