Confederate Gibraltar

2019 ◽  
pp. 278-291
Author(s):  
Philip Gerard
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Army Of Northern Virginia ◽  
Cape Fear River ◽  
Cape Fear ◽  
Open Port ◽  
The U.S

An immense sand fort guards the entrance to the Cape Fear River and the fairway to Wilmington, the last major open port of the Confederacy, through which blockade runners supply vital materiel for Gen. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. On Christmas Eve 1864, a U.S. Navy armada unleashes the heaviest bombardment in history on the fort, in advance of landing 6,500 assault troops. But the U.S. commander, Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, falters, and only 2,300 troops make it ashore in roughening weather. They are stranded on the cold beach overnight without shelter. In the morning, the fleet sails away. Just three weeks later an even more powerful assault force returns, including USCT, who will play a crucial role in the battle. This assault is led by Brig. Gen. Alfred Terry and after six hours of heavy hand-to hand fighting forces the surrender of the fort.

River Runaways

2019 ◽  
pp. 23-28
Author(s):  
Philip Gerard
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Cape Fear River ◽  
Cape Fear ◽  
The U.S

William B. Gould, a skilled artisan who worked on the Bellamy mansion as a hired-out slave, makes his daring midnight escape by boat with seven companions down the Cape Fear River past the river forts and the slave catcher patrols. He is one of 331,000 slaves in the state-many of whom carry on an invisible and subversive life out of sight of the white plantation owners. Gould’s band makes it to freedom, and he joins the U.S. Navy to hunt down blockade runners.

Epilogue

Yankee Plague ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorien Foote
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Prisoners Of War ◽  
Prison System ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Army Of Northern Virginia ◽  
Military Campaigns ◽  
Cape Fear River ◽  
Cape Fear ◽  
A Site ◽  
County Jails

The death of the Confederate prison system, like the death of the Confederacy itself, was an uneven process across space and time. After the exchange at the Northeast Cape Fear River, the Confederacy acquired new Federal prisoners of war during the subsequent military campaigns of Schofield and Sherman. Recaptured prisoners from the great escapes of late February still populated county jails. One thousand prisoners returned to Andersonville in early April. A few days before Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant, Colonel Henry Forno, the Confederate prison bureaucrat still in charge of the system in the Carolinas, wrote the new commissary general of prisoners, Brigadier General Daniel Ruggles, about building a new prison on a site eighteen miles from Columbia on the Charlotte & South Carolina Railroad line. “I am receiving small lots of prisoners and have no place to keep them but open fields,” Forno informed his superior. He estimated it would take him ten days to erect a stockade....

Elevated Levels of Metals and Organic Pollutants in Fish and Clams in the Cape Fear River Watershed

2011 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Mallin ◽  
Matthew R. McIver ◽  
Michael Fulton ◽  
Ed Wirth
Keyword(s):  
Organic Pollutants ◽  
River Watershed ◽  
Cape Fear River ◽  
Cape Fear

Wilmington Falls

2019 ◽  
pp. 292-297
Author(s):  
Philip Gerard
Keyword(s):  
West Bank ◽  
The West ◽  
Town Creek ◽  
Cape Fear ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. Army marches on Wilmington in two wings, one up the eastern peninsula and other up the west bank of the Cape Fear. Ironclad monitors provide artillery support form the river itself. Nine regiments of USCT attack the entrenched line at Sugar Loaf, but cannot breach it. Across the river, local blacks act as scouts, and under their guidance 6,500 troops commanded by Maj. Gen Jacob D. Cox are able to flank the rebel positions at Fort Anderson and Town Creek, forcing an evacuation of the Sugar Loaf position directly across the river as well. On Washington’s Birthday, Wilmington surrenders to US. troops.

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