From the Friends of Fort Fisher:
Multiple cannon blasts will mark the commemoration of the 148th anniversary of the Battle of Fort Fisher on January 19, 2012, when Fort Fisher State Historic Site hosts “Sheppard's Battery: Confederates Defending the Left Flank,” a living history program that focuses on the Confederate defenders at Sheppard’s Battery and at the fort’s “Bloody Gate.”
Civil War re-enactors will set up displays of camp life and talk with visitors about the life of the Confederate infantry and artillery troops during the January 1865 campaign. Throughout the day, infantry and artillery units will conduct drills and firing demonstrations, including the site’s rifled and banded 32 pound cannon atop Sheppard’s Battery. The program is free and will be held from 10 am to 4 pm.
Scheduled speakers include local historian Ernie Kniffen, who will discuss new findings on his extensive research of Confederate sailors and Marines. Later in the day, author Richard Triebe will sign books and discuss NC troops who were captured at Fort Fisher and sent to a prison camp in Elmira, NY. Also on site will be author, educator, and member of the Wilmington Railroad Museum board of trustees, James Burke, who will sign and promote his book, “The Wilmington and Weldon Railroad in the Civil War.”
At 12:30, the NC Underwater Archaeology Unit will dedicate a new highway marker for the blockade runner Modern Greece.
All Fort Fisher programming is made possible by the Friends of Fort Fisher and its sustaining members, Mike McCarley, Brian Nunnally, Ernie Kniffen, Tammy and Jack Moore, and Jim and Catherine Taylor.
Fort Fisher, the largest earthen fortification in the Confederacy, once protected the port of Wilmington and the vital blockade running trade on the Cape Fear River. After two massive bombardments the fort fell to a Union infantry assault on January 15, 1865. With the capture of Fort Fisher, Wilmington’s port – “the Lifeline of the Confederacy” – was closed to foreign trade.
Fort Fisher State Historic Site is located at 1610 Fort Fisher Blvd S, Kure Beach, N.C. 28449. For more information, call (910) 458-5538 or visit the web site www.nchistoricsites.org/fisher/. Fort Fisher State Historic Site is part of the Division of State Historic Sites in the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency with the mission to enrich lives and communities, and the vision to harness the state’s cultural resources to build North Carolina’s social, cultural and economic future. Information is available 24/7 at www.ncculture.com.
