Battery Buchanan

Battery Buchanan (HMJ28)

Location: Kure Beach, NC 28449 New Hanover County
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Country: United States of America
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N 33° 57.59', W 77° 56.516'

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Inscription

Fort Fisher's Last Stand

— Confederate Lifeline —

These are the remnants of Battery Buchanan, named for Confederate Adm. Franklin Buchanan. It was constructed in 1864 to guard this point and also to serve as "a citadel to which an overpowered garrison might retreat." It was the last major earthwork erected to support Fort Fisher, the "Gibraltar of the Confederacy," located a mile northeast.

On Christmas Day 1864, during the first of two battles for Fort Fisher, the Confederate sailors and marines manning the four-gun battery here repulsed Federal boats dragging New Inlet for torpedoes (mines), sinking one vessel. During the second battle, on January 15, 1865, Confederate commanders Gen. W.H.C. Whiting and Col. William Lamb fell wounded. When it became clear that the fort must be surrendered, Lamb later wrote, the two men were "hurriedly removed on stretchers to Battery Buchanan where [Maj. James Reilly] proposed to make a stand ... but we found the guns spiked and every means of transportation, even the barge and crew of the colonel commanding, taken by Capt. R.T. Chapman of our navy, who ... had abandoned us to our fate." Soon the Federal force, led by the 27th U.S. Colored Troops, threatened to overrun Battery Buchanan.

Reilly surrendered both the battery and Fort Fisher here, waving a handkerchief tied to his sword. Capt. E. Lewis Moore, 7th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, accepted the surrender and the sword. Years later, in 1893, Moore generously returned the sword to Reilly, and it is displayed in the Fort Fisher Museum.
Details
HM NumberHMJ28
Series This marker is part of the North Carolina Civil War Trails series
Tags
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Placed ByNorth Carolina Civil War Trails
Marker ConditionNo reports yet
Date Added Sunday, August 31st, 2014 at 11:48pm PDT -07:00
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Locationbig map
UTM (WGS84 Datum)18S E 228145 N 3761603
Decimal Degrees33.95983333, -77.94193333
Degrees and Decimal MinutesN 33° 57.59', W 77° 56.516'
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds33° 57' 35.40" N, 77° 56' 30.96" W
Driving DirectionsGoogle Maps
Area Code(s)910
Closest Postal AddressAt or near 3055-3085 The Rocks, Kure Beach NC 28449, US
Alternative Maps Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap

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