The Second Battle of Fort Fisher was a successful assault by the Union Army, Navy and Marine Corps against Fort Fisher, south of Wilmington, North Carolina, near the end of the American Civil War in January 1865. Sometimes referred to as the "Gibraltar of the South" and the last major coastal stronghold of the Confederacy, Fort Fisher had tremendous strategic value during the war, providing a port for blockade runners supplying the Army of Northern Virginia.
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The First Battle of Fort Fisher was a naval siege in the American Civil War, when the Union tried to capture the fort guarding Wilmington, North Carolina, the South's last major Atlantic port. Led by Major General Benjamin Butler, it lasted from December 24–27, 1864.
The Union navy first attempted to detonate a ship filled with powder in order to demolish the fort's walls but this failed; the navy then launched a two-day bombardment in order to demolish the fort and compel surrender. On the second day, the Union army started landing troops in order to begin the siege. But Butler got news of enemy reinforcements approaching, and in the worsening weather conditions, he aborted the operation, declaring the fort to be impregnable. To his embarrassment, Butler was relieved of command on January 8, 1865, and was replaced by Major General Alfred H. Terry, who led a follow-up expedition that captured the fort one week later.
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Fort Fisher was a Confederate fort during the American Civil War. It protected the vital trading routes of the port at Wilmington, North Carolina, from 1861 until its capture by the Union in 1865. The fort was located on one of Cape Fear River's two outlets to the Atlantic Ocean on what was then known as Federal Point or Confederate Point and today is known as Pleasure Island. The strength of Fort Fisher led to its being called the Southern Gibraltar and the "Malakoff Tower of the South". The battle of Fort Fisher was the most decisive battle of the Civil War fought in North Carolina.
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Fort Fisher State Recreation Area is a 287-acre North Carolina state park in New Hanover County, North Carolina in the United States. Located near Kure Beach, North Carolina, it includes Fort Fisher, site of a major naval engagement during the American Civil War. The recreation area also served as a home for the Fort Fisher Hermit, Robert Harrill. Harrill lived in a bunker and shared his beliefs about "common sense" with thousands of visitors every year while surviving on what he could gather from the surrounding salt marsh and oyster beds.
Today, the recreation area consists of the remains of the earthen Fort Fisher and a museum at Fort Fisher State Historic Site, an oceanfront beach pavilion, a large lagoon popular with windsurfers, and a long stretch of beach that is accessible only by four-wheel drive vehicles. The beach is an important nesting ground for sea turtles, and state park rangers regularly patrol the beach to identify recently built turtle nests. Once they are identified, they are clearly marked and surrounded with a mesh fence to prevent vehicles from driving over the eggs. The openings in the mesh are large enough to allow newly hatched turtles to pass through and return to the sea.
The endangered Piping Plover and the Peregrine Falcon are other endangered species found in the area.
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Federal Point Township, North Carolina, is a statistical township consisting all of Carolina Beach, Kure Beach, and Sea Breeze. Federal Point Township also includes part of Silver Lake and Myrtle Grove. Federal Point Township is located in New Hanover County, North, Carolina.
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Kure Beach is a town in New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States, approximately 15 miles south of Wilmington. It is part of the Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,191 at the 2020 census. It is found on Pleasure Island directly south of the Wilmington Beach annex of Carolina Beach and just north of Fort Fisher. The town is less than 1 square mile in area, stretching along about 3.5 miles of coastline along Pleasure Island, and a maximum width of less than 0.5 miles, in most places only a few hundred yard/meters wide.
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