Fort Fisher…The Rest of the Story



View of the Union Blockade 

Fort Fisher Air Force Recreation Area is a postage size area. It does meet all of your overnight camping needs. Here is the secret! It is located mere minutes from the real Fort Fisher (Civil War Era).
What is Fort Fisher in relations to the Civil War? Let me tell you a little history. The Union or Federal forces knew that the only way the  South would capitulate would be if their supplies were cut off. Other than food, most of the supplies came from around the world by ship. The Union affectedly did a blockade of  sea ports from Virginia to Texas. Towards the end of the Civil War, General Lee said, “if we lost Fort Fisher we would loose Jacksonville and the war”. Fort Fisher was the last port opened to the Confederate Army. One of the reason that it held for so long was that it was a state of the art in fort construction. Most other forts were made of brick and mortar. 

View of Cannon Battery from
 Confederate side

This type of construction was easily demolished by cannon fire. Fort Fisher was constructed with heavy wood bunkers and 25 feet or more of sand on top. The shells could not penetrate the bunkers. Fort Fisher was assaulted twice. The first time the Union troops landed, but were unable to sustain a long campaign. Two week later they were prepared. The Union forces took the fort. One month later Jacksonville fell. The war was over in 90 days after Fort Fisher was defeated. A foot note here is that the Union commander was from New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Volunteers were some of the

View from the Union side

land troops in the campaign). So, in our Civil War explorations we have seen where the Civil War started and very close to where it ended.
Later in the day we moved our camp to the famous “Camp Lejeune” United States Marine Corp Base.
That is what we saw and did!