History Banks - Early Days at Fort Macon

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The Early Days of Fort Macon

Beaufort’s Importance as a Harbor Required Fortification

Fort Macon was built to thwart foreign invasion.

The fort and grounds have been preserved as a North Carolina State Park, and Ranger Paul Branch is a crackerjack historian who knows all.

He tells us the Town of Beaufort was captured twice in its early history because “hostile ships were able to sail right into the harbor through an undefended Beaufort Inlet.”

Spanish marauders invaded in 1747, creating true mayhem. (This event is noted by the North Carolina Highway Historic Marker Program with signage in Beaufort, titled “Spanish Attack.”)

The Spaniards were eventually driven away by the local militia under command of Col. Thomas S. Lovick and Maj. Enoch Ward.

Col. Lovick served as Carteret County’s justice of the peace as well as the port customs agent and tax collector. He was instrumental in gaining funding from the colonial assembly to build a fort using gathered and bundled wood to guard Beaufort Inlet.

The fort was to be named for Arthur Dobbs, who sat as the colonial governor from 1754-65. The project began in 1756 but was never completed, Branch said.

Therefore, throughout the entire American Revolutionary War, Beaufort was at great risk.

The colonists were jubilant when British Gen. Charles Cornwallis surrendered to America’s Gen. George Washington at Yorktown, Va., on Oct. 19, 1781.

Yet, not every battle unit got the memo, as pockets of fighting continued. One such encounter occurred in Beaufort Harbor on April 4, 1782.

Four British vessels sailed up the coast from Charleston, S.C., and entered Beaufort Harbor. The British boats posed as friendly ships. Townspeople did not suspect the ruse. British dragoons came ashore to ransack Beaufort once more.

“The British spent the next five days pillaging and plundering the town, while skirmishing with local militiamen who had begun to gather in increasing force from neighboring communities,” Branch said.

Cols. John Easton and Enoch Ward Jr. eventually assembled

enough men to drive the British intruders back out to sea.

The scuffling at the “Battle of Beaufort,” as it was tabbed, was one of the last chapters of the Revolutionary War … before the formal treaty of peace was signed on Sept. 3, 1783, recognizing American independence.

Fort Hampton Opened in Advance of War of 1812

Historian Paul Branch said the second attempt to locate a fort on Bogue Banks was successful. Fort Hampton was erected near the eastern tip of Bogue Banks guarding Beaufort Inlet.

Built in 1808, the fort cost $8,863.62. It was named after Col. Andrew Hampton, a North Carolina Revolutionary War hero. (He commanded the Rutherford County soldiers in the Battle of Kings Mountain.)

Fort Hampton was small – only 90 feet by 123 feet. The gun platform contained five cannons. Each could fire an 18-pound iron cannonball about a mile.

The citizens of Beaufort felt secure with the new fort guarding their harbor … as the United States was threatened once again by Great Britain in the War of 1812.

During the war, the presence of Fort Hampton caused British warships to keep their distance. Apparently, the British believed the fort was quite formidable, because they never attacked it. Lucky for us.

Things weren’t going so well on the inside of Fort Hampton. Capt. John Nicks wrote six letters in 1812 to William Eustice, Secretary of War in the James Madison administration.

Capt. Nicks requested a flag, a spy glass, a raise in pay, money to fix the mailboat and money to fix the barracks. (He also sent a reminder about the raise.) We don’t think he received even a reply.

Capt. Nicks was reassigned later in 1812, and Capt. Joseph Bryant assumed command of Fort Hampton. Capt. Bryant had his own issues.

He appealed directly to U.S. Congressman Willis Alston of Halifax County, detailing that soldiers were nearly naked – lacking military clothing and shoes. Capt. Bryant also asked for wood as fuel and some muskets.

We assume the troops were sufficiently clad in August 1813, when North Carolina Gov. William Hawkins visited Fort Hampton. He reported finding “mostly structural problems” and declared the fort to be vulnerable on its landward side, since the guns faced the water. Fortunately, the war ended in 1815.

Fort Macon Was Designed by Elite French Architect

U.S. National Parks Service researcher Thor Borresen said many assessments conducted after the War of 1812 reached the same conclusion – America’s defensive fortifications were appalling.

“In 1816, President James Madison instructed his War Department to find ‘an engineer of repute, one who was thoroughly familiar with all types of warfare and well versed in the science and art of designing fortifications’”…and then hire the son-of-a-buck.

Gen. Simon Bernard was available. A French baron, he was highly educated and most qualified “in the science of engineering.”

In 1799, Bernard entered the French Army and rose rapidly through the ranks. He served from 1809-12 as aide-de-camp to Napoléon Bonaparte, the French Emperor.

“Gen. Bernard’s reputation as a military engineer was of so high (Continued on page 56)

an order that his services were eagerly sought by several European governments,” Borresen said. “Most flattering offers were tendered him, all of which he declined in order to follow the example of those eminent French nobles who had cast their lot with the American colonies during the Revolution.”

With the support of President Madison, Simon Bernard was appointed Brigadier General of Engineers with the U.S. Army in 1816.

Gen. Bernard made an extensive tour of the East Coast and gave a detailed report of his findings and recommendations to Congress in 1821.

Borresen noted that Gen. Bernard himself “chose the sites and determined the general character” of at least six U.S. forts during the 19th century. One was Fort Macon.

Fort Hampton was formally abandoned in 1820. When Lt. William A. Eliason of the Army Corps of Engineers arrived on Bogue Banks to oversee construction of Fort Macon in late 1825, “he found Fort Hampton in Beaufort Inlet,” commented Paul Branch, a Fort Macon State Park ranger.

There’s no exact record of when the little fort actually met its end. Local tradition attests it was swallowed by the sea in a hurricane on June 3-4, 1825. Fort Macon Had All the Angles Covered

Fort Macon is set below ground level, situated into the dunes in such a way to be invisible from the sea.

It was cleverly designed in the shape of an irregular pentagon. One side guards the mouth of inlet, while two guard the channel and back sound, another overlooks the harbor and the fifth covers beach approaches to the fort.

Historian Paul Branch of Fort Macon State Park said: “The fort has an outer line of defense (covertway) and an inner citadel. Separating the two is the ‘ditch,’ the bottom of which is near mean low tide level.” As the tide rose, the ditch could be filled with water, flowing through a canal from the sound, a moat-like deterrent to an assault on the fort.

Branch said: “There are 26 casemates inside Fort Macon (including the main sally port and postern). The ceilings are arched to give added strength and dissipate concussion from shells exploding on terrepleins or from guns firing in battle.”

The terrepleins, basically, are the earthen embankments that form the platforms where the cannons are mounted.

“Each of the rooms within the fort had a fireplace, two holes in the ceiling for ventilation and outer windows, which were in reality rifle loopholes and gun ports,” Branch said.

“The fort had three magazines to store powder and ammunition, one located behind each of the three stone stairways. The stairways provided added protection against shellfire.”

Fort Macon’s first soldiers arrived in December 1834, “although no guns were given for its defense until a year afterward,” Branch noted.

Up until 1861, the fort was occupied intermittently by troops and occasionally by engineer detachments making repairs and improvements. Most of the time, however, a single ordnance sergeant acted as caretaker. Mike Wagoner