for the men of the U.S. Army. 

 President Thomas Jefferson 

 ordered that Fort Macon — named 

 for revolutionary war hero 

 Nathaniel Macon, a North Carolina 

 senator who procured funds to con- 

 struct the fortress — be built as one 

 of a line of 38 brick forts along the 

 East Coast. Jefferson reasoned that 

 building strong forts armed with 

 heavy weapons would protect 

 coastal commerce without the need 



built at Old Topsail (now Beaufort) 

 Inlet. It was located about 300 feet 

 from the site of Fort Macon. For 

 about two decades, this small brick 

 fort protected the harbor. Duty at 

 Fort Hampton was not desirable, and 

 it was deserted. In 1825, a hurricane 

 lashed the tip of Bogue Banks and 

 swept the little fort into the sea. 



Fort Hampton was gone, but the 

 need for a strong, long-lasting 

 coastal defense for Beaufort had not 



The fort was constructed between 1826 and 1834 using 9.3 million bricks. 

 The walls inside the moat are 4.5 feet thick. The moat is connected by a series 



of canals to Bogue Inlet so that water from the inlet could be used to flood 

 the moat in the event of an attack. The moat was never used for this purpose. 



for a large national navy. 



Two other forts, Dobbs and 

 Hampton, predated Fort Macon. 

 Begun in 1756, Fort Dobbs was 

 never finished, leaving the inlet 

 defenseless against pirates and 

 other seagoing scoundrels who 

 struck fear in the hearts of even the 

 most hardy coastal residents. 



In 1808, Fort Hampton was 



diminished. Enter Fort Macon. 



From its inception, Fort Macon 

 was to be a fine example of a brick, 

 casemate fort. Built mainly with 

 slave labor and local materials, the 

 fort became a showcase of coastal 

 fortress construction. 



But again, isolation, coastal 

 storms and a Spartan existence for its 

 garrison made Fort Macon one of the 



worst duty posts in the country. 

 Now and then, a generous soul 

 would be assigned to command the 

 fort. Such a man was Gen. Samuel 

 French, a veteran soldier. 



"I spent most of my time sailing 

 on the sound and fishing," the gen- 

 eral wrote of his duty in 1843. "The 

 water teemed with fish, and both 

 game and oysters were abundant." 



When he was transferred a year 

 later, French had trouble saying 

 goodbye. "My 

 stay at Fort Ma- 

 con was pleas- 

 ant," he wrote. 

 "And I was not 

 overjoyed to leave 

 the place." 



Twenty years 

 later, Moses 

 White would use 

 any word but 

 pleasant to de- 

 scribe his difficult 

 duty at the fort. 



The Confed- 

 erate colonel 

 knew the Union 

 Army had vowed 

 to recapture Fort 

 Macon. A year 

 earlier, Confeder- 

 ate Capt. Josiah 

 Pender of Beau- 

 fort and his garri- 

 son of local troops 

 took the fort from 

 an ordnance ser- 

 geant without 

 firing a shot. Re- 

 storing Fort Macon to the Union 

 would be a lift for morale and return 

 another major Confederate fort to the 

 hands of the U.S. government. It 

 would also secure safety for ships 

 that had to pass the fort to supply 

 major Union strongholds like New 

 Bern and Kinston. 



For weeks, the Union Army had 

 prepared for its attack on Fort Ma- 



14 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1993 



