A Work Of More Labor Than The Pyramids

A Work Of More Labor Than The Pyramids. Unknown Union officer regarding the construction of Fort Fisher. Fort Fisher was an engineering marvel during the American Civil War. Unlike masonry fortifications, such as Forts Macon and Sumter that preceded it, Fort Fisher was an earthen fortification, the largest ever built by the Confederacy. It spanned more than one and a half miles and was shaped like the number "7.", Construction of Fort Fisher continued throughout the war under the direction of Col. William Lamb. On any given day for two and a half years, approximately 1000 men, both impressed enslaved laborers and soldiers stationed at the fort, worked together on the project., I have seen no works anywhere in the Confederacy that would at all compare with them. [They are built] to withstand an indefinite hammering from any ordnance now known. General Whiting's great skill as an engineer is shown at every step." B. Lewis Blackford, ...We are building a mountain Seventy two [sic] feet high[.] I don't think we will ever get it done...These forts made of sand were constructed with wheelbarrows pushed and pulled along gangways. It was very interested to see two or three hundred wheelbarrows rolling in unison from the points of loading to those of dumping and returning in a circle passing the loaders who[,] shovel in hand[,] threw sand in the barrows as they passed without stopping. Letter from Sgt. T.A. McNeill to Mary Margaret McNeill, March 28, 1863, (captions) , Sketch of B. Lewis Blackford, Confederate engineer who surveyed Federal Point. Gilmer Map Collection, University o North Carolina at Chapel Hill., Heavy seacoast guns, such as those used at Fort Fisher, were placed on their carriages using a gin like the one depicted here. Library of Congress, Enslaved laborers building a palisade fence. Fort Fisher State Historic Site., 1863 sketch of Fort Fisher. The Confederate fortification remained a work in progress throughout the war. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, In memory of Martha A. Woodson by R. Peyton Woodson , Dedicated in honor of Billy Salter by Bill and Becky Salter