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On January 15, 1865, Fort Fisher, in North Carolina, fell after a three-day combined land-and-sea assault by Union troops.

In December, Union major general Benjamin Butler had tried to bring down the Confederate fort (known as the “Gibraltar of the South” for its defenses) with the assistance of Rear Admiral David D. Porter but had aborted his attack. Butler was replaced with Major General Alfred H. Terry, who, along with Porter, tried again in January to take the fort, which sat on a peninsula guarding the river entrance to Wilmington, North Carolina, the last major Confederate port on the Atlantic and a supply lifeline for the Confederacy and its army.

On the 13th, Porter and his 60 ships began a grueling bombardment of the fort. This lasted until 3 o’clock on the 15th, when Terry and half of his 8,000 available troops—along with 2,000 marines and sailors—began the land attack. The marines and sailors, who streamed down the peninsula to attack from the seaward side, suffered heavy losses from Confederate fire in their unsuccessful attempt, but they served as a distraction from Terry’s main force, which came at the fort from the river side.

After bloody hand-to-hand fighting, the Union force managed to take the fort. However, although the Union troops were the victors—and outnumbered the Confederates—they suffered more severe losses: 1,300 killed or wounded compared to the Confederates’ 500. Wilmington would fall into Union hands a month later.

For the full official correspondence regarding the second battle for Fort Fisher, see Fold3’s Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, series 1, volume 11, pages 425–596.

Following the Battle of Franklin, which had devastated John Bell Hood‘s Confederate forces, Hood pursued the Union troops to Nashville, where they had joined with those of George H. Thomas. Now vastly outnumbered, Hood’s battered Army of Tennessee took a defensive position parallel to the Union lines on December 2, 1864, and waited for the Union attack.

Thomas finally began his offensive on December 15. He directed part of his troops to attack Hood’s right, while the majority of his forces were sent in a wheeling maneuver to smash into Hood’s left flank. The plan proved successful, but night fell just as Hood’s left crumbled, preventing a rout. During the night, Hood pulled back about two miles from his former position and formed a more compact line.

The next day, Thomas’s troops again attacked, using much the same tactics as the day before. This time when Hood’s left flank collapsed, it took the rest of the line with it. Confederate soldiers fled despite their commanders’ attempts to halt them, though Stephen D. Lee managed to pull together enough troops to defend the Confederate rear as the army fell back. Thomas’s troops pursued the Confederates for the next 10 days, until Hood crossed the Tennessee River.

After his disastrous Franklin-Nashville Campaign, Hood resigned his command. The Battle of Nashville was the final blow for both the Army of Tennessee and Hood’s military career.

On December 26, 1861, President Lincoln and his cabinet decided to release imprisoned Confederate envoys James Mason and John Slidell in order to avoid the possibility of war with Britain, thus concluding the diplomatic uproar known as the Trent Affair.

It all started when an overzealous Union commander, Charles Wilkes, stopped a British mail ship, the Trent, in the Caribbean on November 8. Wilkes knew that the ship was carrying Mason and Slidell on their way to Europe to argue the Confederacy’s case in London and Paris. Wilkes had the Trent boarded, and Mason and Slidell (and their two secretaries) were illegally removed from the ship. (To make it legal, Wilkes would’ve had to capture the ship as well and take it to a maritime prize court to have the legality of the seizure decisively determined—but Wilkes only took the two men and not the ship.)

When Wilkes made it back to America with the four Confederates in tow, the nation was ecstatic, with the Secretary of the Navy expressing his thanks and Congress even awarding him a gold medal for his actions. Not only had the United States thumbed its nose at the Confederacy, but at Britain as well, who was seen as having Southern sympathies. But when news reached Britain of the men’s capture, the reaction was opposite of the Americans’—everyone was outraged, particularly since it wasn’t initially clear if this breach of Britain’s neutrality was done with the sanction of the U.S. government.

Tensions escalated until soon both sides were talking about the possibility of war. To show the United States its breach of Britain’s neutrality had been serious, Britain ordered thousands of troops to sail to Canada and sent the Americans a dispatch (via the British minister to the United States) that implied repercussions unless the U.S. government apologized and released Mason, Slidell, and the secretaries.

After two days of meetings, on December 25 and 26, Secretary of State William Seward convinced Lincoln and his cabinet to agree to release the four Confederates from prison. So on January 1, Mason and Slidell were allowed to resume their journey to Europe, thus averting the threat of war.

For the full official correspondence regarding the Trent Affair, see Fold3’s Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, series 1, volume 1, pages 129–202. Or search Fold3 for other people and topics that interest you.