Fort Fisher, some history and a geocache

Fort Fisher, thanks to Suess

Carolina Beach is one of our favorite beaches in North Carolina. My wife was raised going there every summer for two weeks with her family. We continued the tradition for a while but now kind of hop around to different beaches when family can arrange to go and rent a house. This year we made it back to Carolina Beach and all the fun that goes with it. We hit Big Daddy's Seafood at Kure Beach, the boardwalk at Carolina Beach and Fort Fisher.

Fort Fisher is a place that has always captured my attention because family tradition is that my great-great-great grandfather Henry Stephen King was a Confederate soldier there. In a history produced by Sampson County, NC the family of Henry Stephen King is featured. Apparently family members claimed that he was there for the fall of the fort in January 1865.

Fort Fisher thanks to Suess

My research over the years does indicate that he enlisted in the Confederate Army in Company C, 5th Cavalry of the 63rd Regiment of Confederate NC Troops. Muster rolls say that he was discharged due to a disability within a few months. This was actually before the unit finished its boot training and was officially organized and deployed. I can't just ignore family tradition so I continue to believe that he could be among men conscripted or who volunteered late in the war to fill vacancies. I don't know.

Fort Fisher still stands with its sand dune defenses. Some are washing away into the sea through erosion. There is a nice museum worth your time. For more information on this battle click here.

I pushed on from the museum area up to the end of the peninsula, out to Battery Buchanan. This was the artillery battery located close to the mouth of the Cape Fear River, positioned to defend that river against invading Union ships. I found Fort Fisher Cache (GC37C) placed in 2001. You can tell from the short number that it is an early cache. I sat out from the public parking at the end of the peninsula and tracked right out to the cache with no muggle interference at all. The find was straight forward and easy, just a little poking around in the prickly bushes. It was an easy find on top of the overlook and behind the gun positions. What a view of the scene of some pretty serious fighting so long ago. Thanks to the cache owner for bringing me here.