"Come aboard, you sailors," they yelled; "the captain's ladder is right this way. What you hangin' back for?" [Illustration: Attacking the Inner Traverses of Fort Fisher] The last words were drowned in a tremendous Rebel yell as they saw the bluejackets break and retreat out of range. The Confederates, however, had cheered too soon. In manning the sea-wall they had weakened too much the defenses on the landward side and the word was given for all three brigades to attack at once. The color-bearers of all the regiments ran forward like madmen, headed by the officers and all sprinting as if running a two hundred and twenty-yard dash. The officers and the color-bearers of all three brigades reached the outer lines almost at the same time. With a rush and a yell they were up over the outer wall and forming inside for the attack on the inner traverses which yet remained. It was desperate work and the hardest fighting of the day was done around these inner bomb-proofs, each one of which was like a little fort in miniature. The crisis came when the first brigade was barely keeping its foothold on the west end of the parapet while the enemy which had repulsed the bluejackets were moving over in a heavy column to drive out Curtis' panting men. It was at this moment that the boy-general Pennypacker showed himself the hero of the day. He had already carried the palisades and the sally-port and had taken four hundred prisoners and then wheeled and charged to the rescue of Curtis' exhausted men. Ahead of them was the fifth traverse which must be stormed and crossed before Curtis' men could be relieved. Already the men were wavering and it was a moment which called for the finest qualities of leadership. Pennypacker himself seized the colors of the 97th Pennsylvania, his old regiment, and calling on his men to follow, charged up the broken side of the fifth traverse. His troops swarmed up after him side by side with the men of the 203d Pennsylvania and the soldiers of the 117th New York, but Pennypacker was the first man to fix the regimental flag on the parapet and shouted to Colonel Moore of the other Pennsylvania regiment: "Colonel, I want you to take notice that the first flag up is the flag of my old regiment."