After its hard-fought victory at Fort Fisher, the battered Union army waited for reinforcements under Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield before moving against Wilmington in early February 1865, a target General Grant considered vital to supporting General William T. Sherman's Carolinas Campaign. General Terry and Admiral Porter warned Schofield that the Confederate positions at Sugar Loaf and Fort Anderson would be difficult to take, and Schofield organized a two-pronged attack in which Porter's gunboats shelled both positions from the riverside while Terry's Provisional Corps, including two brigades of U.S. Colored Troops, assaulted the Sugar Loaf lines on February 11, 1865. U.S. Colored Troops led by Brig. Gen. Charles J. Paine bore the brunt of the Union fighting in the Battle of Sugar Loaf, but despite their courage and prowess in a frontal assault against strongly entrenched Confederate forces, they and their white comrades failed to overrun the defenses and withdrew to establish a new line of breastworks about 900 yards to the south. Schofield then tried to outflank the Sugar Loaf lines by sending an expeditionary force up the sea beach under cover of darkness on February 12 and again on the 14th, but stormy weather forced it back both times. He then shifted operations to the west side of the Cape Fear River, and after the Confederates evacuated Fort Anderson before dawn on February 19 following two days of heavy fighting, Porter's flotilla moved farther up the river and threatened General Hoke's forces from above Sugar Loaf. Hoke consequently abandoned Sugar Loaf on February 19 and withdrew toward Wilmington, Terry's forces briefly occupied the lines, and Union forces captured Wilmington on February 22, 1865. Forty-six days later, General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, ending the four-year war.