Fort Fisher

By January 1865, Wilmington was the Confederacy’s last major port still open to blockade runners. Fort Fisher guarded the mouth of the Cape Fear River, where ships brought supplies past the Union blockade. The fort’s long sand ramparts were not a stone citadel; they were earthworks designed to absorb naval bombardment and hold a defensive line along the coast.

The Confederacy began building the fort in 1861, and it grew into the largest earthwork fortification in the South. Enslaved and free Black laborers worked alongside Confederate soldiers to construct it. By the final months of the war, the fort protected the supply route that connected Confederate forces inland with goods arriving from abroad. Losing it would isolate Wilmington and cut a major channel of support to the Confederate armies.