The Union breakthrough into Fort Fisher occurred here as the division of Gen. Adelbert Ames, made up of three brigades totaling 3,700 men, assembled on the ridge behind this position and awaited the order to advance. The first attack was led by Col. Newton Martin Curtis, and once his men gained a foothold, Ames ordered Colonel Galushia Pennypacker's second brigade forward. Union troops broke through the stockade fence and climbed the traverse of Shepherd's Battery, where fierce hand-to-hand combat erupted within the first three gun traverses. The breakthrough came at heavy cost because naval bombardment had opened only a few gaps in the stockade, not enough for rapid passage, so members of Curtis' brigade used axes to widen the openings before entering the fort under heavy Confederate fire. Four men received the Medal of Honor, including Pvt. Bruce Anderson of the 142nd New York, who was originally from Mexico but was listed as a mulatto in an otherwise all-white regiment. Capt. Albert G. Lawrence of Ames' division led his part of the brigade in the charge, became the first through the palisade, and was mortally wounded after his hand was shot away as he reached for a guidon flag to plant on the first traverse. According to Curtis, the first forty or fifty men through the stockade climbed the parapet, met the enemy between the first and second traverses, and overpowered gunners at two Columbiads before one Confederate trying to fire after being called on to surrender was stopped by a saber blow.