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I selected General Weitzel, of the Army of the James, to go with the expedition, but gave instructions through General Butler. He commanded the department within whose geographical limits Fort Fisher was situated, as well as Beaufort and other points on that coast held by our troops; he was, therefore, entitled to the right of fitting out the expedition against Fort Fisher.
Augur, who had been ill for some time, yet unwilling to relinquish his command, now found himself unfitted for the summer campaign that seemed in prospect. He accordingly turned over his division to Weitzel, took leave of absence on surgeon's certificate, and went North to recruit his health.
Meanwhile on the left of the Teche the main body moved forward in two lines of battalions deployed, Paine on the right and Weitzel on the left, while Ingraham, in column of companies, formed the reserve for both. Paine's first line on the right, nearest the bayou, was composed of the 4th Wisconsin and 8th New Hampshire, his second line of the 133d New York and the 173d New York.
In this advance the Vermonters captured one lieutenant and forty-one men. The Cotton retreated out of range. That night her crew applied the match and let her swing across the bayou to serve as an additional obstruction. In a few moments she was completely destroyed. Then, having thus easily gained his object, Weitzel returned to La Fourche.
This the great trees that covered the hill rendered an easy task. On the morning of the 27th of May, therefore, the works that Weitzel was called upon to attack consisted mainly of big logs on the crest and following the contour of the hill, rendered almost unapproachable by the felled timber that choked the ravines.
Soon after I left President Lincoln I received a dispatch from General Weitzel which notified me that he had taken possession of Richmond at about 8.15 o'clock in the morning of that day, the 3d, and that he had found the city on fire in two places. The city was in the most utter confusion.
Weitzel, who, as far as Saint Martinville, had led the advance of the main column, followed by Emory with Paine and Ingraham, there took the road to the left and halted on the evening of the 17th of April at Côte Geleé, four miles in the rear of Grover. The next morning Weitzel moved up to Grover's support, while Banks, with Emory, rested at Côte Geleé to await the rebuilding of the bridge.
Weitzel asked whether the direction would apply to Roman Catholics, Hebrews, and other churches having a prescribed liturgy, and Stanton replied ex cathedra, in the affirmative, repeating his reprimand. Weitzel now appealed to the President, and the absurd controversy was stopped.
The black cavalrymen who rode into Richmond, the first of the Northern troops to enter the Southern capital, went in waving their sabres and crying to the negroes on the sidewalks, "We have come to set you free!" They were from the division of Godfrey Weitzel, and American history has no more stirring moment. Then no straw could be overlooked.
Weitzel, having entered Franklin without opposition, kept the left-hand or cut-off road until he came to the burnt bridge over the Choupique, by which, as will presently be seen, the Confederates had escaped. Gooding, after occupying the works in his front, crossed the Teche by a bridge to the west bank and fell into Emory's column behind Ingraham.
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