Category: Local History

July 18–21, 1775 — Southport. 🇺🇸

Before the Declaration was even signed, North Carolina’s Revolution started HERE.

Patriots led by Robert Howe, Cornelius Harnett, and John Ashe stormed Fort Johnston at the mouth of the Cape Fear while Royal Governor Josiah Martin watched from a British warship offshore.

The fort was largely destroyed. The governor fled to the ship. The Crown’s grip on our coast broke that week — and never came back.

Historians call it the first active violence against the British in North Carolina.

It happened on our shoreline, 251 years ago this summer.

#America250 #RevolutionaryWar #SouthportNC #BrunswickCounty #NCHistory #CarolinaAfterDeadline

A Brunswick County boy, a flagpole, and the U.S. Navy’s biggest guns. ⚓

📍 Fort Fisher sits at Kure Beach, NC — at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, about 20 miles south of Wilmington. That’s where Pvt. Christopher C. Bland, 19, of Shallotte, climbed the bare flagstaff under a storm of naval fire on Christmas Eve 1864 — twice — to raise the battle flag. The deed earned him the Confederate Medal of Honor.

The official citation reads:

“When the garrison flag staff was destroyed in the opening bombardment, orders were given to raise the battle flag on the empty staff at the Mound battery. Private Bland grabbed the flag and finding the halyards unreeved, personally climbed the flag staff and despite a heavy fire of shot and shell from the enemy fleet, fastened the flag. Determined to destroy this staff, the enemy concentrated their guns on the Mound battery, eventually cutting loose the lower end of the flag. Again, Private Bland climbed the staff and at great personal peril, reattached the flag with his necktie where it remained, although torn and rent by shell fragments, until the enemy withdrew.”

Wounded in January, captured, held at Point Lookout, lost a leg to infection. He came home to marry Elizabeth Boyd, raise 13 children, and preach for fifty years — the “peg-leg” preacher of Pitt County. One of only 42 Confederates ever awarded the medal. It sits on display at the Fort Fisher State Historic Site.

Thanks to Bill Bland for sharing this story. (📸 Map graphic AI-generated; second photo is Fort Fisher today.)

⏰ Tomorrow morning, 5:00 AM. It begins. 🇺🇸

Our first story: July 1775. A fort at the mouth of the Cape Fear. The first shots of North Carolina’s Revolution — fired right here in Southport.

Set your alarms.

#America250 #CarolinaAfterDeadline #BrunswickCounty #SouthportNC #RevolutionaryWar

🇺🇸 BIG ANNOUNCEMENT 🇺🇸

Starting this Friday at 5:00 AM, Carolina After Deadline launches a brand-new series: “America250: Battles of Our Coast.”

Eight mornings. Eight true stories of the Revolutionary War — fought right here in our coastal communities, from Southport to Brunswick Town to the swamps of Bladen County.

Every post comes with a graphic and a map showing exactly where it happened.

Our coast has been making history for 250 years. Time to tell it.

#America250 #CarolinaAfterDeadline #BrunswickCounty #NCHistory #RevolutionaryWar

On Christmas Eve 1864, with Union shells raining down on Fort Fisher, Pvt. Christopher Columbus Bland of Company K — the “Brunswick Artillery” — climbed the fort’s flagstaff under fire to re-fasten the garrison flag.

Bland was later wounded and taken prisoner. He survived the war and became known around these parts as the “peg-leg” preacher.

Stories like his are why we do this. Our coast’s history runs deep — and we’ll keep telling it. 🇺🇸