Admiral Porter's gunboats open fire on the sea face of the fort on January 15, and by noon they succeed in silencing all but four guns.
During this bombardment, Hoke sends about a thousand troops from his line to Fort Fisher; however, only about four hundred are able to land and make it into the defense while the others are forced to turn back.
About this time, the sailors and marines, led by Lieutenant Commander Kidder Breese, land and moved against the point where the fort's land and sea faces meet, a feature known as the Northeast Bastion.
The Union Army’s original plan was for the naval force, armed with revolvers and cutlasses, to attack in three waves with the marines providing covering fire, but instead, the assault goes forward in a single unorganized mass.
General Whiting personally leads he defense and routs the assault, with heavy casualties in the naval force.
The attack, however, draws Confederate attention away from the river gate, where Ames prepares to launch his attack.
At 2:00 in the afternoon, he sends forward his first brigade, under the command of Brevet Brigadier Newton Martin Curtis, as Ames waits with the brigades of Colonels Galusha Pennypacker and Louis Bell.
An advance guard from Curtis's Brigade uses axes to cut through the palisades and abatis.
Curtis's Brigade takes heavy casualties as it overruns the outer works and storms the first traverse.
At this point, Ames orders Pennypacker's Brigade forward, which he accompanies into the fort.
As Ames marches forward, Confederate snipers zero in on his party, and cut down a number of his aides around him.
Pennypacker's men fight their way through the riverside gate, and Ames orders a portion of his men to fortify a position within the interior of the fort.
Meanwhile, the Confederates turn the cannons in Battery Buchanan at the southern tip of the peninsula and fire on the northern wall as it falls into Union hands.
Ames observes that Curtis's lead units have become stalled at the fourth traverse, and he orders forward Bell's Brigade, but Bell is killed by sharpshooters before ever reaching the fort.
Seeing the Union attackers crowd into the breach and interior, General Whiting takes the opportunity to personally lead a counterattack.
Charging into the Union soldiers, Whiting receives multiple demands to surrender, and when he refuses he is shot down, severely wounded.
Porter's gunboats helps maintain the Federal momentum.
His gunners' aim prove to be deadly accurate and begin clearing out the defenders as the Union troops approach the sea wall.
Curtis's troops gain the heavily contested 4th traverse.
Colonel Lamb begins gathering up every last soldier in the fort, including sick and wounded from the hospital, for a last-ditch counterattack.
Just as he is about to order a charge, he falls severely wounded and is brought next to General Whiting in the fort's hospital.
General Ames makes a suggestion for the Union troops to entrench in their current positions.
About an hour into the battle, Curtis falls wounded while going back to confer with Ames.
Colonel Pennypacker also falls wounded before the battle ends.
The grueling battle lasts for hours, long after dark, as shells plunge in from the sea and General Ames struggles with a division that becomes increasingly disorganized as his regimental leaders and all of his brigade commanders fall dead or wounded.
General Terry sends forward Abbott's brigade to reinforce the attack, then joins Ames in the interior of the fortress.
Meanwhile in Fort Fisher's hospital, Colonel Lamb turns over command to Major James Reilly and General Whiting sends one last plea to General Bragg to send reinforcements.
Still believing the situation in Fort Fisher is under control and tired of Whiting's demands, Bragg instead dispatches General Alfred H. Colquitt to relieve Whiting and assume command at Fort Fisher.
At 9:30 p.m. Colquitt lands at the southern base of the fort just as Lamb, Whiting and the Confederate wounded are being evacuated to Battery Buchanan.
At this point, the Confederate hold on Fort Fisher is untenable.
The seaward batteries have been silenced, almost all of the north wall has been captured, and Ames has fortified a bastion within the interior.
Terry, however, has concluded to finish the battle that night.
Ames, ordered to maintain the offensive, organizes 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 is unmistakable.
Colquitt and his staff rush back to their rowboats just moments before Abbott's men seize the wharf.
Major Reilly holds up a white flag and walks into the Union lines to announce the fort will surrender.
Just before 10 p.m., General Terry rides to Battery Buchanan to receive the official surrender of the fort from General Whiting.
