This book was written by Chris E. Fonvielle Jr, published in 1999, the narrative is 100 pages and is illustrated with black and white photos and drawings. Fort Anderson played an important role in the history of North Carolina during the Civil War. It was the Confederacy's largest interior fortification in the Lower Cape Fear, and guarded the Cape Fear River and western land approaches to Wilmington. Beginning in late March, 1862, Confederate engineers built massive earthen defenses at Brunswick Point, the site of the colonial port town of Brunswick, located halfway between Wilmington and the mouth of the river. These works comprised elevated artillery emplacements mounting heavy seacoast cannons and an adjoining line of imposing field works that extended westward for more than a mile, from the Cape Fear River to Orton Pond. The army initially named the works Fort St. Phillip for St. Phillip's Angilican Church, the only standing colonial structure at the site of Old Brunswick. In July 1863, the army renamed it Fort Anderson, in honor of North Carolina Brigadier General George Burgwin Anderson, who had been mortally wounded at the Battle of Sharpsburg the previous September. In early November 1863, Confederate President Jefferson Davis visited Fort Anderson. By early 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant was so determined to capture Wilmington, the Confederacy's principal seaport and most important city, that he traveled from Virginia to the Cape Fear to finalize plans for an attack by way of Fort Anderson. His forces had recently captured Fort Fisher and sealed the harbor to blockade running. Grant now wanted to take Wilmington as a means of assisting General William T. Sherman's legion on it's march through the Carolinas toward Virginia to help defeat General Robert E. Lee's beleaguered, but strongly entrenched, army at Petersburg. This hard book is in very good condition, with a dust jacket also in very good condition.

Item # AA2476