Fort Macon. . .

We were so busy between going to Cape Lookout and the Ghost tour we did not get to go to the Maritime museum or Fort Macon.  We did do a quick trip to Fort Macon on our way home.  We did not get to go in the museum but we did go around the Fort and Big T took some fabulous pictures.  He has really gotten good at snapping shots with his camera.  He let me use it during the Pirate tour and on the beach but he took all the pictures at the Fort except those of him.  I snapped those.  We had been to Fort Fisher before when the boys were much younger but this Fort was very impressive.  I was amazed at the cannon placement all around the top portion of the Fort.  They had the cannons fixed so that they could easily rotate them almost 180 degrees.  They only had a couple out there for you to see but you could see where all the others had been.  The ones they had left were facing out to the harbor.  We walked all around the top of the Fort and then went down on the inside portion.  We saw their kitchen area and storage area they had samples of china pieces that they had found laying around the Fort.

My dear hubby is a history buff and especially war history.  I am glad too, I don't think they teach a lot of that in school anymore.  My kids will have to learn their history from their dad.  Hubby went into teaching mode while we were out there  spouting off all the things he knew about the Fort and the part it played in the war.  Here is a brief synopsis.

The Union forces actually built the Fort, the Confederates came and over took it at the start of  the war.  The Fort was later attacked and over taken by the Union in 1862.  402 North Carolina Confederates refused to surrender even though they were surrounded.  April 25, 1862 Union forces began a heavy siege for 11 hours.   It was a federal prison from 1867-1876 during the Spanish-American War.  On May 1, 1936 Fort Macon opened as North Carolinas' first functioning state park.