From the Wilmington (NC) Star-News.
On or around April 28, 1861, Major Charles Pattison Bolles began digging two small earthwork batteries a mile north of now-vanished New Inlet of the Cape Fear River.
He did this in defense of the state although North Carolina was still almost a month away from secession. Governor John W. Ellis and other prominent men were pushing the state to joining with its sister states in the new Confederacy, but technically, the state was still in the Union.
Warships did not take up blockading positions of the Cape Fear River until July.
Of course, four years later, those two small batteries had grown to be the most massive fort on the continent. One part of it was still called Battery Bolles in Charles' honor.
So Happy Birthday, Fort Fisher. --Old B-R'er
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