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HISTORY OF FORT MACON
| Civil War Fort Macon History |
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| Panoramic view of Fort Macon, NC |
Today, Fort Macon is one of North
Carolina’s most visited state parks, receiving more than a million visitors each year.
Five-sided Fort
Macon is constructed of brick and stone. Twenty-six vaulted rooms (also
called casemates) are enclosed by outer walls that average 4 1/2 feet thick.
In modern times, the danger
of naval attack along the North Carolina coast seems remote,
but during the 18th and 19th centuries, the region around Beaufort was highly vulnerable to attack.
Blackbeard and other infamous
pirates were known to have passed through Beaufort Inlet at will while successive wars with Spain,
France and Great Britain
during the Colonial Period provided a constant threat of coastal raids by enemy warships. Beaufort was captured and plundered
by the Spanish in 1747 and again by the British in 1782.
| Fort Macon, North Carolina |
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| Aerial photograph of Civil War Fort Macon |
North Carolina leaders recognized the need for coastal defenses to prevent
such attacks and began efforts to construct forts. The eastern point of Bogue Banks was determined to be the best location
for a fort to guard the entrance to Beaufort Inlet, and in 1756 construction of a small fascine fort known as Fort Dobbs
began there. Fort Dobbs
was never finished, and the inlet remained undefended during the American Revolution.
Early in the 1800s, continued strained relations with Great Britain caused the United States
government to build a national defense chain of coastal forts to protect itself. As a part of this defense, a small masonry
fort named Fort Hampton
was built to guard Beaufort Inlet during 1808-09. This fort guarded the inlet during the subsequent War of 1812, but it was
abandoned shortly after the end of the war. Shore erosion, combined with a hurricane in 1825, swept this fort into Beaufort
Inlet by 1826.
| Fort Macon (present-day) |
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| Fort Macon, North Carolina |
The War of 1812 demonstrated the weakness of existing
coastal defenses of the United States
and prompted the US government into beginning
construction on an improved chain of coastal fortifications for national defense. The present fort, Fort Macon, was a part of this chain. Fort Macon's purpose was to guard Beaufort Inlet and Beaufort Harbor, North Carolina's only
major deepwater ocean port.
Construction of the present
fort began in 1826. The fort was garrisoned in 1834. In the 1840s, a system of erosion control was initially engineered by
Robert E. Lee, who later became general of the Confederate Army. At the beginning of the Civil War, North Carolina seized the fort from Union forces. The fort was later attacked in 1862, and
it fell back into Union hands. For the duration of the war, the fort was a coaling station for navy ships.
Fort Macon was a federal prison from 1867 to
1876, garrisoned during the Spanish-American War and closed in 1903. Congress offered the sale of the fort in 1923, and the
state purchased the land, making it the second state park. Restored by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1934-35, the fort
was garrisoned for the last time during World War II.
| Fort Macon, North Carolina |
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| (Historical Marker) |
| Fort Macon, North Carolina |
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| Fort Macon. Vintage photograph. |
Fort Macon was
designed by Brig. Gen. Simon Bernard and built by the US Army Corps of Engineers. It was named after North Carolina's eminent statesman of the period, Nathaniel Macon. Construction began in
1826 and lasted eight years. The fort was completed in December, 1834, and it was improved with further modification during
1841-46. The total cost of the fort was $463,790. As a result of congressional economizing, the fort was actively garrisoned
only during the years of 1834-36, 1842-44 and 1848-49. Often, an ordnance sergeant acting as a caretaker was the only person
stationed at the fort. The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, and only two days elapsed before localNorth Carolina militia forces from Beaufort arrived to seize the fort for the state ofNorth Carolina and the Confederacy. North Carolina Confederate
forces occupied the fort for a year, preparing it for battle and arming it with 54 heavy cannons. Early in 1862, Union forces commanded by Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside swept through eastern North Carolina, and part of Burnside's command under Brig. Gen. John G. Parke was sent to capture Fort Macon. Parke's
men captured MoreheadCity and
Beaufort without resistance, then landed on Bogue Banks during March and April to fight to gain Fort Macon. Col. Moses J. White and 402
North Carolina Confederates in the fort refused to surrender even though the fort was hopelessly surrounded. On April 25,
1862, Parke's Union forces bombarded the fort with heavy siege guns for 11 hours, aided by the fire of four Union gunboats
in the ocean offshore and floating batteries in the sound to the east.
| Fort Macon State Park |
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| Characteristics of Fort Macon, North Carolina |
While the fort easily repulsed the Union gunboat attack, the Union land batteries, utilizing
new rifled cannons, hit the fort 560 times. There was such extensive damage that Col. White was forced to surrender the following
morning, April 26, with the fort's Confederate garrison being paroled as prisoners of war. This battle was the second time
in history that new rifled cannons were used against a fort, demonstrating the obsolescence of such fortifications as a way
of defense. The Union held Fort Macon for
the remainder of the war, while Beaufort Harbor served as an important coaling and repair station for its navy. During the Reconstruction Era, the US Army actively occupied Fort Macon until 1877. During this
time, since there were no state or federal penitentiaries in the military district of North Carolina and South
Carolina, Fort Macon was
used for about 11 years as a civil and military prison. The fort was deactivated after 1877 only to be garrisoned by state
troops once again during the summer of 1898 for the Spanish-American War. Finally, in 1903, the US Army completely abandoned
the fort.
| Fort Macon, North Carolina |
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| Interior view of Civil War Fort Macon |
| Civil War North Carolina Map |
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| Battle of Fort Macon |
In 1923, Fort Macon was offered for sale as surplus military property. However, at the bidding
of North Carolina leaders, a Congressional Act on June 4, 1924, sold the fort and
surrounding reservation for the sum of $1 to the state of North Carolinato
be used as a public park. This was the second area acquired by the state for the purpose of establishing a state parks system. During 1934-35 the Civilian Conservation Corps restored the fort and established public
recreational facilities, which enabled Fort Macon State Park to officially open May 1, 1936, as North
Carolina's first functioning state park. At the outbreak of World War II, the US Army leased the park from the state and actively
manned the old fort with Coast Artillery troops to protect a number of important nearby facilities. The fort was occupied
from December, 1941, to November, 1944. On October 1, 1946, the Army returned the fort and the park to the state.
Credits: ncparks.gov; Fort Macon State Park; National Park Service
Recommended
Reading: American Civil War Fortifications (1): Coastal brick and stone forts (Fortress). Description: The 50 years before the American Civil War saw a boom in the
construction of coastal forts in the United States of America.
These stone and brick forts stretched from New England to the Florida Keys, and as far as the Mississippi
River. At the start of the war some were located in the secessionist states, and many fell into Confederate hands.
Continued below...
Although a handful of key sites remained in Union hands throughout the war, the remainder had to be won
back through bombardment or assault. This book examines the design, construction and operational history of those fortifications,
such as Fort
Sumter, Fort Morgan
and Fort Pulaski,
which played a crucial part in the course of the Civil War.
Recommended Reading: Ironclads and Columbiads: The Coast
(The Civil War in North Carolina) (456 pages). Description: Ironclads and Columbiads covers some of the most
important battles and campaigns in the state. In January 1862, Union forces began in earnest to occupy crucial points on the
North Carolina coast. Within six months, Union army and
naval forces effectively controlled coastal North Carolina from the Virginia
line south to present-day Morehead City.
Continued below...
Union setbacks in Virginia, however, led to the withdrawal of many federal soldiers from North Carolina,
leaving only enough Union troops to hold a few coastal strongholds—the vital ports and railroad junctions. The South
during the Civil War, moreover, hotly contested the North’s ability to maintain its grip on these key coastal strongholds.
Recommended Reading: The Civil War in the Carolinas
(Hardcover). Description: Dan Morrill relates the experience
of two quite different states bound together in the defense of the Confederacy, using letters, diaries, memoirs, and reports.
He shows how the innovative operations of the Union army and navy along the coast and
in the bays and rivers of the Carolinas affected the general course of the war as well as
the daily lives of all Carolinians. He demonstrates the "total war" for North
Carolina's vital coastal railroads and ports. In the latter part of the war, he describes
how Sherman's operation cut out the heart of the last stronghold
of the South. Continued below...
The author
offers fascinating sketches of major and minor personalities, including the new president and state governors, Generals Lee,
Beauregard, Pickett, Sherman, D.H. Hill, and Joseph E. Johnston. Rebels and abolitionists, pacifists and unionists, slaves
and freed men and women, all influential, all placed in their context with clear-eyed precision. If he were wielding a needle
instead of a pen, his tapestry would offer us a complete picture of a people at war. Midwest Book Review: The Civil War in the Carolinas by civil war expert and historian Dan
Morrill (History Department, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Director of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historical
Society) is a dramatically presented and extensively researched survey and analysis of the impact the American Civil War had
upon the states of North Carolina and South Carolina, and the people who called these states their home. A meticulous, scholarly,
and thoroughly engaging examination of the details of history and the sweeping change that the war wrought for everyone, The
Civil War In The Carolinas is a welcome and informative addition to American Civil War Studies reference collections.
Recommended
Reading: The Civil War in Coastal North Carolina
(175 pages) (North Carolina Division of Archives and History). Description: From the drama of blockade-running to graphic descriptions of battles on the state's islands and
sounds, this book portrays the explosive events that took place in North Carolina's coastal region during the Civil War. Continued
below...
Topics discussed include the strategic importance of coastal North Carolina, Federal occupation of coastal areas, blockade-running,
and the impact of war on civilians along the Tar Heel coast. About the Author: John S. Carbone, M.D., is assistant chief of
Forensic Psychiatry Services, Dorthea Dix Hospital, Raleigh, North Carolina. He earned a B.A. from William & Mary and
an M.D. from the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
Recommended Reading: The Civil War on the Outer Banks: A History of the Late Rebellion Along
the Coast of North Carolina from Carteret to Currituck With Comments on Prewar Conditions and an Account of
(251 pages). Description:
The ports at Beaufort, Wilmington, New Bern and Ocracoke, part of the Outer Banks (a chain of barrier islands that
sweeps down the North Carolina coast from the Virginia Capes to Oregon Inlet), were strategically vital for the import
of war materiel and the export of cash producing crops. From official records, contemporary newspaper accounts, personal journals
of the soldiers, and many unpublished manuscripts and memoirs, this is a full
accounting of the Civil War along the North Carolina coast.
Continued below...
Reader's Review: I personally knew Fred Mallison all my life and have
a personally signed copy of this book. The book is well written and Fred used many primary sources, including autobiographies,
memoirs, etc. Many little known facts of the Civil War on the North Carolina Outer Banks are included which make for
a very interesting read. Fred also included several outstanding pictures in the book. (The only thing Fred did not like about
his own work was the title - he had a different one - but the publisher insisted on this one.) I
highly recommend this book as a must for all personal "War for Southern Independence" libraries. About the Author: The
late Fred M. Mallison had a passion for preserving the history and heritage of the Civil War, particularly the conflict along
the North Carolina coast. Fred, absent from the text, leaves the readers with a balanced approach and view of the heroic soldiers
that fought valiantly, for both the North and South, in the many battles along the North Carolina coast and Outer Banks. Fred
was a graduate of N.C. State University and East Carolina University. He resided in Washington, North Carolina, a North
Carolina coastal city, which brings passion and depth to his works and studies.
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