Under the Federal battle plan for the assault on Fort Fisher, 1,600 sailors and 400 marines were to attack the sea face while 3,700 troops assaulted the land face. Admiral Porter intended the sailors, armed with sharpened cutlasses and revolvers, to rush and board the fort, with marines behind them to cover the advance. Gen. Newton Martin Curtis doubted the plan and warned that the naval assault force would be fearfully punished and chiefly serve to draw fire away from the army’s lines. At 3:25 p.m., the signal began the infantry assault as Gen. Adelbert Ames’s three brigades, drawn up one behind another three to five hundred yards from the fort, advanced with their left opposite the middle of the land face and their right near the river. A column of 2,000 sailors and marines was to assault the sea angle at the same time to create a diversion in support of the infantry attack. The expedition was also troubled by a dispute between division commander Gen. Adelbert Ames and first brigade commander Gen. Newton Martin Curtis over command authority, as Ames believed Gen. Alfred Terry had given him unrestricted command of the fighting forces while Curtis recalled that Terry said he was to receive orders directly from him; the issue was never resolved.