How I Got Bit by the Civil War Bug

I was born in North Carolina and still living there in 1958 when I was in second grade. We spent time every summer at Carolina Beach which is a short distance north of Fort Fisher.

At one time there were two big white columns near the Air Force Beach with the name Fort Fisher on them and a cannonball on top of each. I asked my dad what that was all about.

He explained that a war was fought a long time ago between the North and the South and this was a part of it.

I had studied the continents and knew about the states in school, so I told him that we must have been on the North's side because we lived in North Carolina and North America. He then had a really hard time explaining to me that we were on the South's side.

That got me to wanting to know more about it. One library book led to another, to another, to another, and so forth until I was totally hooked.

Probably a question I shouldn't have asked, but....

And Now You Know.... the Rest of the Story. --Blockade-Runner