By
MILTON F. PERRY
Fort Macon's
Brief Belligerence
Exterior of Fort Macon after the battle, showing effect of shot on the fort.
Л
sketch made for Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper. May, 1862. by a staff artist.
At eight o'clock on the dark, wind¬
less evening of March 17. 1862. a lean
black shadow slipped past the grim
walls of Fort Macon, guarding Beau¬
fort harbor, and entered the open sea.
Troops clad in Confederate grey lined
the ramparts and watched as the lights
of four warships converged on this ves¬
sel. The reverberation of cannon fire
shook the air, and water glistened with
phosphorent brightness as the attacked
ship increased its speed and maneu¬
vered sharply. Swiftly, it outdistanced
the pursuers and disappeared to the
southwest, accompanied by the joyful
cheers of the soldiers in the fort.
This was the escape of the "Nash¬
ville " a Confederate blockade run¬
ner bringing 8,000 British F.nfield rifles
to the beleaguered South. She had been
the first ship to carry the Bonny Blue
flag into an English port, and this voy¬
age, to Beaufort from Britain via Nas¬
sau. had thrown the Union navy into
such confusion that she had been re¬
ported in a variety of locations. As
soon as she had dropped anchor under
the guns of Fort Macon, word was re¬
ceived that she would Ik forced to run
the blockade again to escape a Yankee
army advancing from newly-captured
New Bern. Her escape was a "terrible
blow to the prestige." wrote the As¬
sistant Secretary of the U. S. Navy,
"it is a Bull Run to the navy."
The Yankees
The jubilation of those in Beaufort
and Fort Macon was of short duration,
however, for a week later the narrow
streets of the old town were filled with
men in blue. These troops, members of
an army commanded by General Am¬
brose E. Burnside, (who achieved
everlasting immortality for a hairdo —
"sideburns") had come to attack Fort
Macon and open the harbor it barred
to the fleet.
The fort, now girded for battle, oc¬
cupied the site of two previous fortifi¬
cations which had defended the port
for a century. Construction on it began
in 1826 and some eight years later, it
was completed at the cost of half a
million dollars — a sizable sum in those
days. Named for venerable North Caro¬
lina Senator Nathaniel Macon, an
intimate friend of Jefferson, and char¬
acterized by him as the "last of the
Romans." the fort embodied all the
newest defense gadgets of the times.
Note: Milton Perry is curator of Fort
Macon State Park.
Painstaking masons (paid S2.50 for
a 10 to 12 hour day) laid some 15,-
000, 000 bricks in graceful arches and
intricate patterns. The walls, six feet
thick in many places, enclose thirty-
four rooms, a moat, and parade
ground.
Air Conditioned
Water was obtained from under¬
ground cisterns fed by rainwater fil¬
tered through sand and crushed oyster
shells. All who examine this system to¬
day ask the reason for the constant
drip of water to the reservoirs— even in
the driest weather. (Evidently it is
caused by the condensation of moist air
on a lead sheet covering the entire
building.) Each room was equipped
with an “air conditioning" system, in
which fresh air. entering ducts in the
roof, circulated between brick walls,
cooled and issued from vents cut in the
baseboards near the floor.
To facilitate the delivery of build¬
ing materials, engineers dug a canal
(using slave labor) a half-mile long
through the sand to the fort site. After
this “ditch" was filled by a hurricane,
a small railroad was built parallel to
it employing horse-drawn cars. Though
the bastion was protected by a num¬
ber of concrete and stone breakwaters.
THE STATE. SEPTEMBER 20, 1952
