The interior of North Carolina adjoining the Sounds is largely swamp
land, and the broad belt of forest, chiefly pines, which parallels the
coast all along the Atlantic seaboard. Through this region the railway
extends southward from Virginia past Weldon to Wilmington, an
uninteresting route among the swamps and pine lands, showing sparse
settlement and poor agriculture, the wood paths exhibiting an
occasional ox-team or a stray horseman going home with his supplies
from the cross-roads store, a typical representative of the
"tar-heels of Carolina." The railway crosses the deep valley of
Roanoke River, and then over the Tar and Neuse Rivers, traversing the
extensive district that provides the world's greatest supply of naval
stores--the tar, pitch, turpentine, rosin and timber that are so
largely shipped out of the Cape Fear River from Wilmington. This is
the chief city of North Carolina, having about twenty thousand people,
and is located on the Cape Fear River twenty-six miles from its mouth.
The city spreads along the eastern shore upon the peninsula between it
and the ocean. The first settlement antedates the Revolution, when the
inhabitants, who were sturdy patriots, drove out the royal Governor
and made Fort Johnson, at the mouth of the river, an American
stronghold. Upon the secession of the Carolinas in 1860-61 this fort
was occupied by the Confederates and replaced by the larger work on
Federal Point, between the river and the sea, known as Fort Fisher.
Owing to the peculiar location and ease of entrance, the Cape Fear
River became famous in the Civil War as a haven for blockade-runners,
the effective defense made by Fort Fisher fully protecting this
traffic. As the Union blockade of the Southern harbors became more
completely effective with the progress of the war, this finally was
about the only port that could be entered, and an enormous traffic was
kept up between Wilmington and Nassau, on the British island of New
Providence, in the Bahamas, not far away, some three hundred fleet
foreign steamships safely running the blockade into Cape Fear River
during 1863 and 1864. The notoriety of this traffic, from which
enormous profits were made, became world-wide, and it was decided late
in 1864 that Fort Fisher had to be captured, in order to make the
Southern blockade entirely effective. A joint land and naval attack
was made by General Butler and Admiral Porter in December, 1864, but
they were obliged to retire without seriously damaging the fort. Then
General Butler ineffectively attempted to blow up the fort by
exploding a powder-boat near it. Finally a new expedition was landed
in January, 1865, under General Terry, and in coöperation with the
navy, which made a fierce bombardment, they captured the fort on the
15th, after severe loss, the works being partially destroyed the
following day by the accidental explosion of the powder magazine. This
capture ended the blockade-running at Wilmington, and had much to do
with precipitating the fall of Richmond in the following April.
[Illustration: _On the Ashley, near Charleston, S. C._]