Imagine the Scene

A Fort for the Centuries

Go to the center of the lawn in front of the visitor center and look towards the water.

You are standing in what for nearly a century was the most substantial fort in North Carolina, partially completed by 1749. In 1775 you see high walls of thick timber all the way around, set in raised foundations along the edge that is still clearly visible near the modern streets. Those foundations are made of “tapia” or “tabby,” a cement-hard concoction made from live oyster shells, sand, and lime. There are holes through the walls through which the fort’s cannons stick. The largest likely face the water, which is the mouth of the Cape Fear River. The islands of today weren’t there at the time, so the artillery had a clear shot at anything within range.

As of 1769, the fort’s artillery comprised “eleven 18-pounders, sixteen 9-pounders, and 23 half-pound swivel guns.” The weights refer to the cannonballs each could fire. Along with a number of small arms and ammunition, “The post still boasted a single drum, as it had as many as three years earlier, but the forlorn instrument was again (or still) in need of repair.”[1]

Trees have probably been cut down up to a modern block away on the three land sides.[2] Many are no doubt in the wall or buildings, but this also provides a clear “field of fire” against any invaders.

Trying to justify his later actions to a British official, Martin describes the fort as “‘a contemptible thing, fit neither for a place of arms nor an asylum for friends of government.’”[3] This was unlikely. It received so expensive an update under its commandant Capt. John Collet just a few years earlier, the Provincial Assembly refused to reimburse him 90% of his costs.[4]

Look at the right front corner of the lawn, where the streets meet.

Sticking out from the basic square layout of the walls, nearly to the modern pier, is an “embrasure” allowing cannon- and gunfire sideways against attackers from land or sea. Each of the corners has these embrasures, creating what is called a “star fort” (see Collet’s map above). A narrow platform, for seeing or shooting over the top, lines the back of the wall, at least on the front side if not all the way around.

Look to the right.

Between the embrasures on each side of the fort are what looks like a moat, but is dry. Called a “fosse” (pronounced “FOS”), this is meant to serve as a killing zone to catch attackers in a crossfire from the embrasures. Davis Street to your right probably runs where the fosse was on that side.[5] Another shorter wall might run between the embrasures at the front of each fosse. There is a wooden drawbridge across the Davis fosse, from a gate to your right toward the modern house in the center of the block.

Scottish traveler Janet Schaw, observing in 1775 from a ship as the captain came here to file his papers, said the fort “does not appear quite so tremendous, tho’ I see guns peeping thro’ the sticks. If these are our fortresses and castles, no wonder the Natives rebel; for I (could) take this fort with a (regiment) of black-guard Edinburgh boys without any artillery, but their own pop-guns.”[a]

See “Historical Tidbits” below for the fort’s full history.

The Governor Takes Refuge

Turn toward the fort museum.

Where the museum center now stands is, in 1775, a large log cabin serving as an officer’s quarters. Overlapping the current site of the N.C. Maritime Museum to the left of it is a barracks building for the garrison. Between them a smaller building, a “magazine,” stores ammunition and arms.[6]

The five members of Martin’s Council of State who didn’t give up their posts when he left New Bern meet here on Sunday, June 25. (This group was like the modern governor’s cabinet, but it was appointed by the king and also served as the equivalent of today’s state senate.) Together they issue calls for Loyalist militia; offer commissions for officers; and petition the British for money for fort repairs. One result is a visit on Monday, July 3, from Allan MacDonald. Married to the globally famous Flora, who helped save a Scottish contender for the English throne from capture as a young woman, Allan is a respected leader in the region west of Cross Creek (now Fayetteville). He offers to create a force of “the good and faithful Highlanders” who dominate that region.[7]

Learning this adds to the concerns of the committees of safety. To them, the fort is a beachhead for a likely British invasion. They issue their own calls for militia to march on the fort.

Walk to the front edge by Front Street. This section of the street only dates to the 20^th Century.

A month later, Martin is tipped off to an impending attack, by merchant captains who had been held briefly by Patriots at Brunswick Town up the river. He escapes to a small, eight-gun British warship with two masts, the HMS Cruizer, just offshore. Built in 1852 and in poor shape, it already had around 50 sailors and marines on board its 21- by 73-foot deck above a single nine-foot hold, an historian says. Martin brings with him 30 other people including two council members.[b]

Collet warns that he cannot defend the fort: It is manned by only 15 men, half the minimum garrison, without enough gunpowder.[8] Martin orders most of the cannons removed from the walls, though the largest remain.[c] You watch as the heavy barrels are lifted with difficulty off their carriages and carried to the beach directly below the fort. There they can be protected by the Cruizer. Collet, his men, and the smaller weapons move to a recently arrived private ship, which soon took them to Boston.[d] (The fate of the neglected drum goes unrecorded!)

If you are standing here in the early morning hours of Wednesday, July 19, 1775, you are having a hot time. About 500 Patriot militia had marched in the day before, no doubt disappointed to find no one here and the cannons out of reach. Among their leaders is Robert Howe, the fort’s previous commander! Around 2:30 a.m., they take torches to the walls and buildings.[e] Martin and the British watch helplessly from the Cruizer. A second wave of perhaps 300 militia finished off the fort after dawn, leaving only the river-side section of the palisade.[f] This is considered the first military action of the Revolutionary War in North Carolina.

After a few days most of the militia, realizing they cannot retrieve the remaining cannons, march away. Locals stick around to keep an eye on the ships. A few days later you watch as some of the British sneak ashore on Martin’s orders and “spike” the guns to disable them, by driving iron plugs into the fuse holes. For many months to come, the British ships fire on anyone who wanders too close to the shoreline.

Schaw described the Cruizer as “an old sloop of war… covered over with barnacles.” She tells an amusing story of hiding a man who had apparently deserted it—a regular problem in the Royal Navy, which abused its sailors. An officer from the Cruizer boarded her ship looking for the deserter, or just to take men, as the Navy was allowed to do. She and a servant shoved the escapee “under the bed of our state-room, and stuffed round him all the dirty linens…” The lieutenant, apparently beguiled by her, talked at length until she feared “the poor devil under the bed would be smothered.” The officer would not leave until she walked out with him. Her servant helped the man escape, whom, she joked, “will not soon wish for the honour of being hid in a Lady’s bedchamber.”[g]

Patriot leaders allow local merchants to supply the ships, probably to give themselves information about what is happening onboard. Four months pass before the British decide it is safe to retrieve the guns, aided by a second warship sent from Boston to help, HMS Scorpion, along with a transport ship.[h] The ships sail close and anchor offshore on Thursday, November 16. Large rowboats with swivel guns—small cannons on pivots—bring over about 40 British troops. The soldiers take positions to your left in the ruins of the fort, facing outward into what then was woods past the clearing. Local militia begin firing from behind the trees, and the British fire back as more sailors tear down the last of the palisade.

Despite Patriots sneaking in to steal tools, the sailors build a temporary pier that allows the transport to directly load the cannons.[i] They then begin the difficult operation of carrying each cannon to the pier and hoisting it aboard. The Cruizer occasionally fires grapeshot (like large shotgun pellets) over the heads of the sailors to keep the militia away. Five days pass before the last cannon and the defenders of the fort can be retrieved. The ships move back into the harbor, and the cannons are sent to Charleston.[j]

By January 1776, Patriot militia have reoccupied what’s left of the fort. Martin has arranged with MacDonald and others for Loyalist (“Tory”) militia to gather at Cross Creek and march to Brunswick Town. Martin tries to keep the local militia occupied. On Saturday the 27^th, he orders the ships to drive the militia out with cannon fire, and the Cruizer fires 26 rounds. But the ships break off and sail upriver. (Visit Wilmington for the rest of that story.)

The entire time British ships remain off the coast, enslaved people from the area escape to them. The HMS Scorpion produces a list on Sunday, March 3, of 36 blacks on that one ship, by single names only. Fifteen of them later joined the navy, including Betty, Friday, Gooseman, and Quash.[9]

At some point the Patriots partially rebuild the fort. On Tuesday, March 12, the Cruizer offloads 11 men to try to retake it. But the militia drive them off with no casualties on either side.

Arrival of the Fleet

To the Patriots’ shock, two days later twenty British ships appear and drop anchor. Onboard is the army of Gen. Sir Henry Clinton, from England by way a brief stop in New York City.[k] At Martin’s suggestion, the British government has agreed to start its campaign to crush the rebellion in the southern colonies here in N.C. This was based on the assumption that Wilmington would be under Loyalist control. However, the Cross Creek Tory force had been destroyed at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge. With no place to disembark safely and no one to guide them through the area, Clinton’s army remains on board.[10]

The standoff continues. It may seem odd that he didn’t just land in force and march north, but swamps dominated the landscape from here to Wilmington, which was controlled by Patriot militia and protected by fortifications. Clinton was likely hoping Tory militia could reorganize and take control of Ft. Johnston or Wilmington. Instead, Patriot militia here and along both shorelines often take potshots at his ships. For several months, smaller British units spread out through the area to forage for food and water, constantly harassed by the Patriot militia.

Then another set of ships arrives directly from Ireland with another corps to join the planned invasion. Its commander, a name that would become far better known for his travels here five years later, visits the fort on Tuesday, April 2, 1776: then-Brig. Gen. Lord Charles Cornwallis.[11]

Meanwhile, enslaved people continue to seek their freedom by escaping past the Patriots to the fleet. Later that April, Clinton crows about the 40 to 50 men that had joined him. “‘I have determined to form a company of them,’” he wrote.[12] One, an African called Tom Peters, had been held by a member of the Wilmington Committee of Safety. He remained with the British throughout the war, getting wounded twice and rising to sergeant.[13]

On Friday, May 1, Clinton orders the navy to destroy the remains of the fort. The ships move in to do so, but around 50 snipers merely move to the woods and drive off the ships again. Two men on an unarmed ship are killed and two more wounded.[14] The next day 10 companies of British troops are successfully landed nearby and march here, only to find the Patriots have fled. The Redcoats march north several miles in the direction of Brunswick Town, but find no one, return here, and go back to their boats. The next day, the snipers are back. The Cruizer drives them off and most of the militia leave for good. Potshots continue to hit the fleet, however, even after it moves the distance of four American football fields offshore, one source says.[l]

A few weeks later Clinton orders all British troops still on land back here. The area around you is covered by tents. At night they set fire to the palmetto trees around the camp to keep snipers away.[15] But on Wednesday, May 22, the campers face a bigger problem. A British doctor records that a “‘Thunder Storm by such the most dreadful one I ever saw in my Life… terminated in (a) most violent storm of Rain and Wind, several Tents were thrown down, and others blown some distance from the spot where they were pitched and many of the highest Trees shiver’d by threads by Lightening (sic) and others torn up by the Roots by the violence of the Wind, it was a most shocking night to pass in Camp.’”[16] Three Patriots take advantage to sneak up and wound a British sentry in the hand with a gunshot, who returns fire and kills one of them.

As the skies clear, the standoff resumes, despite the British having collected a force of thousands on the ships, the largest army in the region until the Civil War.[17] Clinton and his officers decide the combination of the swamps, lack of Loyalist support, and 2,000 new Continental regular-army troops and militia[18] behind strong fortifications in Wilmington are too much to overcome. With all troops back onboard, over two days starting Wednesday, May 29, the fleet sails away to attack Charlestown, S.C.—unsuccessfully.

Although no further action takes place here, the state finally rebuilds the fort to some degree in 1779, and orders new cannon from an unexpected source. A Spanish ship arrived unannounced in Edenton, carrying artillery sent by arrangement with American representatives in Paris including Benjamin Franklin. The Continental Congress delayed payment, so the state was able to buy six 24-pounders and six 18-pounders. They are brought here and mounted.

Walk up Davis Street past the N.C. Maritime Museum. At Moore Street, the one running behind the site, notice the shape of the block to your right. It seems to reflect the shape of the Revolutionary-era star fort.

Burning Down the House

Cross the street to the courthouse. Look at the lawn near you.

The same day the Patriots burn the fort in 1775, they take the opportunity to seek vengeance on the hated Loyalist commandant, John Collet. A veteran of the French and Indian War, Collet produced a highly respected map of colonial North Carolina in 1768.[m] His personal behavior was another matter. “He was accused, for instance, of having defied the high sheriff of New Hanover County in the legitimate performance of his duties, of detaining vessels illegally at Fort Johnston, and of ‘embezzling a large quantity of goods’ from a ship that had come to grief near the fort.”[19] When served a warrant regarding debts he owed, he responded to the sheriff “‘with the shameful contempt of wiping his b–k s-de (back side) with them,'” according to a letter from the time.[n]

Sometime after he became commandant, Collett had built in this area, outside of the fort, a “‘new small dwelling house,’ large barn, stable, coach house, and outbuildings.” In the afternoon the militia burned them. A 1992 archaeology dig found that the oak tree nearest the corner grows through the house foundation.[20] Collett’s losses came to £10,000 or more—upwards of $2 million in modern money, strong evidence of his corruption.[o]

For a close-up look at tapia, go back down Davis Street to the pier, and take the steps on the right onto the beach. Go left under the pier to what looks like a line of rocks along the shore. This is probably the lower battery added in 1804,[21] made of tapia.