Fort Fisher Mission Command

At this point, the Confederate hold on Fort Fisher was untenable. The seaward batteries had been silenced, almost all of the north wall had been captured, and Ames had fortified a bastion within the interior. Terry, however, had concluded to finish the battle that night. Ames, ordered to maintain the offensive, organized a flanking maneuver, sending some of his men to advance outside the land wall, and come up behind the Confederate defenders of the last traverse. Within a few minutes the Confederate defeat was unmistakable. Colquitt and his staff rushed back to their rowboats just moments before Abbott's men seized the wharf. Major Reilly held up a white flag and walked into the Union lines to announce the fort would surrender. Just before 2200. General Terry rode to Battery Buchanan to receive the official surrender of the fort from General Whiting. Although this battle took place 150 years ago, Fort Fisher is one of the most exciting but least known chapters of the Civil war but it clearly shows that they have good examples for where BG Terry exercised mission command principles and …show more content…
Before going into battle, Terry analyzed what had happened during the first attack to the fort and identified things that went wrong. Terry provided a well develop plan of the sustainment of the operation not only to his Soldiers but also to Porter to ensure every Sailor and Marine understood the plans to defeat the confederate soldiers. Even though few things did not go as planned, as when Porter’s sailors and marines attacked the coast of the fort and they were most of them got killed, drown or suffer major injuries. Terry was able to make a bad situation a unique opportunity, and that is when he decided to flank the confederates which quickly turned from bad to a good