History and Nature on Cape Fear

Today we ventured out with our friends Eric & Ginny to visit Historic Fort Fisher and the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher.  We drove south from Wilmington, which sits on the east bank of the Cape Fear River, to Kure Beach.  Fort Fisher was a Confederate fort during the American Civil War. It protected the vital trading routes of the port at Wilmington, North Carolina, from 1861 until its capture by the Union in January 1865 after two assaults on the fort. The fort was located on one of Cape Fear River's two outlets to the Atlantic Ocean on what was then known as Federal Point and today is known as Pleasure Island.

As the Civil War staggered on, the Union had succeeded in blockading most of the port cities serving the Confederacy, which limited the South's ability to supply its army.  Wilmington was the last remaining port that could successfully import goods by running the Federal blockade, due to its unique geography.  Because there were two inlets to the Cape Fear River, separated by many miles of swamp and islands, it was possible for blockade running ships to elude the Federal ships enforcing the blockade, and Wilmington succeeded in supplying the Confederate Army through most of the war.  Finally, in December 1864 and January 1865, the Union concentrated its efforts to enforce the blockade, and successfully took Fort Fisher.  The final battle is being commemorated next weekend in the largest historic re-enactment of the final battle of Fort Fisher, which occurred 150 years ago this week.  Immediately after Fort Fisher fell, the Union Army took the Port of Wilmington, and within 90 days thereafter, General Robert E. Lee was forced to surrender.  We think of him having to give up due to attrition by the Union forces, but, more likely, he had to surrender because he could not longer find the supplies to support the Confederate Army.

Fort Fisher was located on a spit of land between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean.  In the photo of a diorama of the Fort below, North is to the left, the Atlantic Ocean above, Cape Fear River below, and Federal Point (Cape Fear) to the right.  The Fort was L-shaped, with defenses toward the Atlantic Ocean and toward the North, from which ran the Old Wilmington Road.  At the road, in the lower left corner of the photo below, the Fort's Sally Port gate permitted entrance, and this was where the Union troops concentrated their efforts and eventually succeeded in taking the Fort:

The Fort was made of earth and wooden palisades, because sand and earth could withstand heavy bombardment without collapsing.  This is a view of the reconstructed North wall and palisade of the Fort:



A view from inside the Fort shows the Sally Port opening at the left, a cannon battery emplacement high in the center, and the door to a bombproof complex under the sand hill to the right of the battery emplacement:

We toured the museum and fort grounds, then walked out along the sand on the Atlantic Ocean, where the historic eastern wall of the Fort lays submerged.  Trees along the walkway show the dramatic effect of offshore winds:

Although the day was almost frigid, pelicans rose and dove, fishing in the surf, seemingly oblivious to the unseasonably cold weather:

From the Fort, we drove down to Federal Point, near the tip of Cape Fear, just in time to see the Southport Ferry arriving and docking:

We say a long jetty, known as "The Rocks," extending from Federal Point out to Zeke's Island, which now blocks the "New Inlet" which Fort Fisher guarded during the Civil War.  Some of the rocks were submerged, and many were slippery with moss, so we turned back before crossing it entirely.  In this photo, Kathy, Eric and Ginny are walking North, back toward Federal Point in the background:

Back on solid land, we climbed the sand mound that formerly held Buchanan Battery, the southernmost fortification of Fort Fisher, to a tree with roots exposed above the sandy trail:

Having had a picnic lunch, we drove back up the road to the North Carolina Aquarium to see what it could explain to us about the local waters and environment.  Here, Ginny, Eric and Kathy are posing with an alligator friend at the entrance:

As soon as we entered, we encountered this young Bald Eagle, eyeing us suspiciously.  He wanted to turn his backside to us, but we sneaked this photo through some bushes where he couldn't see us so clearly:

The Aquarium is home to a rare albino alligator, who, due to the cool weather, lay listlessly on the "beach" of his artificial swamp:

An underwater show was in progress as we walked through the museum.  Divers spoke to and entertained the crowd from the large central tank:

Behind the Aquarium is an estuarial pond that the Aquarium maintains to foster migrating waterfowl:

Back inside, Kathy made a wrong turn and turned up inside the working end of a Megalodon, a prehistoric ancestor to today's White Shark:

Some of the exhibits included ghostly jellyfish:

And we were introduced to spiny lobsters, close relatives of the Maine lobster:

Not to be outdone, tucked into the corner of an artificial swamp, we encountered this little Blue Poison Frog, looking as innocent as you please (BUT DON'T TOUCH!):

All in all, the day was quite an adventure, and we came away with a much greater appreciation of the natural and human history of this corner of North Carolina.