con. Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside, 

 who had only recently won a deci- 

 sive battle for New Bern, decided 

 that taking Fort Macon by sea would 

 be a futile effort with great loss of 

 men and equipment. The fully armed 

 fort, a moat, 54 huge guns and a 

 garrison of more than 400 troops, 

 would be the clear winner in a 

 water-based assault. Fort Macon was 

 designed to protect Beaufort Harbor 

 from attack by sea, and the men in- 

 side the fort knew 

 how to perform 

 that task with 

 deadly skill. 



Burnside 

 didn't base his 

 plan of attack on 

 surprise. It would 

 be a land assault on 

 a fort built on the 

 basically flat plain 

 of a barrier island. 

 Only a few sand 

 dunes separated the 

 Union Army's 

 efforts from the 

 watchful eyes of 

 the men posted as 

 the fort's spotters. 



In plain view 

 of the Confeder- 

 ates, Union 

 artillerymen in 

 March 1862 began 

 digging entrench- 

 ments and setting 

 up large guns and 

 mortars. Now and 

 then, the Confeder- 

 ates in the fort would fire a volley 

 from one of the fort's large guns. 

 The missile would pierce the air over 

 the heads of the Union artillerymen 

 only to continue down the strand, 

 falling harmlessly into the white 

 sand a half mile away. The Confed- 

 erates needed mortars, weapons that 

 could lob an explosive shell behind 

 the dunes and into the waiting Union 



batteries. But mortars had never 

 been sent to the fort, despite White's 

 efforts to acquire them. 



Realizing the fort's weapons 

 were useless against their advance, 

 the Union Army continued its pa- 

 tient building of batteries for the 

 final assault on Fort Macon. 



As White watched the sun rise 

 on that fateful April morning, he 

 needed no warning. He was as pre- 

 pared as possible. Only weeks before 



mutiny had crossed the colonel's 

 mind more than once. 



As the sun rose clearly out of the 

 Atlantic, a sharp report and a puff of 

 smoke issued from the enemy's bat- 

 teries a quarter mile up the wind- 

 swept banks. In time too short to 

 count, the shot sliced the air over 

 Fort Macon with an eerie shrill. The 

 men in the fort, most of whom had 

 been preparing for this day for 

 months, watched as the deadly mis- 



While the fort was being used as a federal penitentiary after 

 the Civil War, several prisoners escaped from one of the casements 

 through an air vent no more than 18 inches in diameter. 

 Three were later recaptured; the rest were never found. 



the Union began its slow assault on 

 the fort, he'd managed to procure 

 supplies to last six months. Those 

 supplies were dwindling now, and 

 the men in the fort were beginning to 

 complain about food and living con- 

 ditions. All the men's toilet facilities 

 were outside the fort proper, a dan- 

 ger zone by anyone's standards. The 

 possibility that his men might plan a 



sile bypassed the fort and slammed 

 into Beaufort Harbor, skipping 

 through the whitecaps like a child's 

 tossed rock. 



Ten minutes later, Fort Macon's 

 artillery crews responded with a 

 round of fire from the fort's big 

 guns. The battle was on. Shot after 

 shot from the Union ranks soared 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 15 



