Wilmington in the Civil War

Wilmington in the Civil War

During the Civil War Wilmington, North Carolina was one of the only Confederate ports not blockaded by the U.S. Navy. Southern states were not equipped to produce supplies necessary to sustain the war effort or home front, and southerners relied on international trade (primarily with the British) to survive. Private ships, known as blockade runners, profited from smuggling saleable goods like cotton out of the Confederacy and smuggling in necessaries like food and luxury goods like fine cloth. Union troops captured Wilmington in February of 1865, which severed one of the Confederacy’s last remaining supply sources. The war ended just three months later. (UNC School of Education, “Running the blockade” and “Wilmington, Fort Fisher, and the lifeline of the Confederacy”)

Jessica Cochran