N.C. Jan. 2017-- Part 36: "Battle Acre" and Encroachment of the Atlantic Ocean

JANUARY 17, TUESDAY

There was a proposal to remove part of "The Rocks" in the last several years, which would have essentially reopened the Civil War's New Inlet, but it seems to have failed.  As much as I would have liked to see the waterway back to its Civil War appearance, I was against the proposal.

From "The Rocks" and Battery Buchanan, I drove back to Fort Fisher and stopped at "Battle Acre."  This is the site of the fort's headquarters and the Confederate monument and the first Fort Fisher Museum before the current one was built in the 1960s.  (There are also plans to build a newer and bigger museum and visitors center.)

Hopefully, certain people won't demand and have the Confederate statue removed.  You know who I am talking about.

This was the first land set aside for the fort.  At one time it was feared that "Battle Acre" would be lost to the encroachment of the Atlantic Ocean.  The ocean was many hundred yards east back during the Civil War, but after the coquina beds out in the water were removed to provide a base for US-421 in the 1920s-1930s, the ocean really came in and washed away and covered a large part of the fort.

--RoadDog