After the Battle of New Bern Burnside turned his attention toward his third objective Fort Macon. Fort Macon was a pentagonal brick fort on the eastern tip of Bogue Banks that guarded Beaufort Inlet and Beaufort Harbor, which was North Carolina’s only major deep water ocean port. Beaufort Inlet was the only inlet into the Outer Banks that the Federals did not control. Brigadier General John Parke and his regiment headed south down the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad toward Fort Macon on March 19th with orders to also occupy Morehead City and Beaufort. They would advance to Havelock on the 20th and Carolina City the next day, where Parke established his headquarters.

Along the road from New Bern to Morehead City is the town of Newport which has a small Civil War Memorial Park at 220 Chatham Street that primarily interprets the Battle of Newport Barracks that took place on February 2, 1864, but it also has a tablet describing the Burnside Expedition, shown below.

The Newport Barracks the 7th North Carolina Infantry built the barracks here as a set of log winter quarters in 1861-1862. 

Two companies of the 4th RI moved to Morehead City on the 22nd. On the 23rd Parke sent a surrender demand to the fort that the Rebels rejected. Beaufort was occupied on the 24th. That same day five days worth of supplies arrived in Carolina City.

By March 29th the railroad bridge was repaired by the 5th RI Battalion. Now with adequate supplies Parke would spend the next 13 days ferrying his troops across the 5-mile-wide Bogue Sound to Bogue Banks. The two pictures below were taken from behind the Crystal Coast Visitor Center looking across Bogue Sound toward Hoop Pole Creek where the Federals landed on Bogue Banks.

By April 10th most of the 4th RI, 5th RI Battalion and 8th CT were on the island 4 miles west of Fort Macon. Reno’s 9th NJ guarded the railroad. From Beaufort a small party crossed to Shackleford Banks and from there were able to row out to connect with the Union fleet offshore.

The Confederates had destroyed the railroad bridge over the Newport River as well as part of the railroad to try and delay the Union advance. Lieutenant Colonel Moses White commanded Confederate forces at Fort Macon. He had 5 artillery companies and a total of only 439 men. He had been ordered to send nine companies of men to New Bern in February. There were 54 guns at the fort. Twelve were rifled (four 32-pounders, one 24-pounder, five 8-inch Columbiads, and two 10-inch Columbiads). The rest were smoothbore 24- and 32-pounders. The problem for the Rebels was that the fort was designed primarily to protect Beaufort Harbor from an attack by sea not by land. White’s men had been busy destroying buildings around the fort, tarring sandbags, and boats at the dock were burned. Limited artillery drills were held and a picket station was set up three miles from the fort.

Confederate pickets and Union troops clashed on April 8th, 9th and 10th. On the 11th a Union reconnaissance in force drove the Confederates back and the Federals were now within a mile of the fort. On April 12th after darkness Union soldiers began work on three siege batteries under Lieutenant Flagler’s direction. The first which Flager would command had four 10-inch mortars that were behind a sand dune 1680 yards from Fort Macon. The second battery which was 200 yards to the right and front of the first had three 30-pounder Parrott rifles under Captain Lewis Morris. The third battery was 200 yards in front of the second with four 8-inch mortars under Lieutenant Merrick Prouty. The Confederates were now completely cut off.

At Fort Macon Colonel White knew that without and mortars at his disposal he could not disrupt the Union batteries and he would need to improvise. He rigged six 32-pounder carronades on pulleys and two 10-inch Columbiads to fire at a forty-degree angle. Colonel White tested the rigged guns on the 16th and although some of the shells exploded near the Federals, they did no damage. General Burnside left New Bern the morning of April 22nd on the Alice Price for Beaufort. As preparations were begin completed Parke sent another surrender demand to the fort on the 23rd which was declined. The bombardment would soon begin.

Next- The Bombardment and Surrender of Fort Macon- April 25-26, 1862