Travel Tuesday: The Siege of Fort Macon's Sesquicentennial

In the midst of rifling through papers, clicking back and forth between browser tabs, and making a list of all the documents I need to order from the New Bern-Craven County Public Library's Kellenberger Room and from the Craven County Register of Deeds, I received a message about a special event...

...an event which commemorates another which occurred 150 years ago

between March 23 and April 26, 1862...

...one that made a lasting impact upon Isaac Carter's future...

This morning I received a most welcome email from John F., who sends me the monthly Fort Macon Dispatch. This particular message, however, shared the links to two videos and a photo album of the special events which took place at the fort this past month, commemorating the 150th Anniversary of

The Siege of Fort Macon.

My husband and I had first visited Fort Macon in the summer of 2007, and since that time I was able to order a copy of Isaac Carter's Civil War Pension File (of which I still have much to work on by way of transcribing and organizing collateral research).

Civil War Talk: The Burnside Expedition
The above link leads to a radio interview on WOUB
with Chris Meekins of the North Carolina State Archives.
(Click the Back button to return to this page.)

Earlier in the year I had been working on a New York Times article entitled Another Glorious Victory, dated March 19, 1862, detailing the Battle of New Bern (March 14, 1862), which immediately preceded the Siege of Fort Macon.

One of the questions I had contemplated was if Isaac's family could hear the Union flotilla as it sailed up the Neuse River and passed Clubfoot Creek where his family lived. They sailed at night in a thick fog and rain. They certainly would have heard them, but what could they see if anything?

John shared the following two links, which led me to the final video shared here.

This link will take you to: The Battle of Fort Macon Reenactment Slide Show. (When you are finished viewing the slide show, click the Back button to return to this page.)

The opening of this final video gave me a good idea of what it must have looked like as the guns bombarded the shoreline in the night sky.

I hope this helps spark your imagination

of what it must have been like

as much as it has for mine.

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