Fort Fisher & the Civil War

Fort Fisher and the Civil War. . After the 1860 presidential election, eleven southern states voted to leave or "secede" from the United States. Many White southerners believed the new administration threatened slavery - the cornerstone of their society., The seceded states formed the Confederate States of America. The nation entered a civil war., In front of you, you can see the remains of Fort Fisher, a massive earthwork fortification built by the Confederacy during the Civil War. Count the mounts, called traverses, from right to left. The section of fort below the first six traverses is original. The section of fort beneath the seventh, eighth, and ninth traverses, directly in front of you, is a reconstruction built in 2024., The walls of Fort Fisher once stretched from ocean to river on the "land face" and south down the beach for more than a mile on the "sea face.", Creating Fort Fisher , From 1862 to 1864, Confederates created Fort Fisher from thousands of cubic yards of sand and timber. Whenever possible, Confederates forced African Americans and American Indians to perform the bulk of construction., Eventually, Fisher's walls towered over the sand plain, reaching over 40 feet tall at the colossal Mound Battery, and containing a network of underground tunnels, bombproof shelters, and ammunition magazines., Fort Fisher guarded Wilmington, a port city with railroad access to the Confederacy's capital of Richmond. As the U.S. naval blockade sat offshore, Confederate soldiers stationed here protected blockade-running ships with the fort's 44 large seacoast cannons., Capture of Fort Fisher , The U.S. Army and Navy launched two attacks on Fort Fisher in December 1864 and January 1865. On January 15, 1865, U.S. forces captured the fort., A combined 3,837 men were killed, wounded, captured, or went missing while fighting here., The U.S. victory at Fort Fisher effectively closed the port of Wilmington - by then the only supply route left in the Confederacy for vital foreign weapons. The Civil War ended about three months later., (captions) , When the U.S. military captured Fort Fisher in January 1865, Major General Ulysses S. Grant sent photographer Timothy O'Sullivan to document the earthen fort. O'Sullivan's photographs of Fort Fisher help us visualize what this massive fortification once looked like. Only about 10 percent remains today. This panoramic view of the fort's land face, which extended from the Cape Fear River to the Atlantic Ocean, shows the wreckage from the battles fought here., Land Face of Fort Fisher by Timothy O'Sullivan Courtesy Library of Congress, Most of Fort Fisher eroded into the ocean. During World War II, the military used the remains of the fort as a training facility. Construction crews demolished part of the remaining land face to build an airstrip. In 2024, this portion of the fort was rebuilt.