Fort Hill: Confederate Batteries on the Pamlico

Five miles east of here, at a bend in the Pamlico River called Hill's Point, Confederate artillery held the river line during one of the Civil War's most overlooked sieges. In the spring of eighteen sixty-three, General D. H.

Hill's forces surrounded the Union garrison at Washington, North Carolina. The guns at Fort Hill anchored Hill's plan, trading fire with Union gunboats trying to push supply runs upriver. For weeks the Confederate cannon kept Federal gunboats from breaking the blockade.

The Union garrison held out until Confederate troops were pulled away for operations elsewhere. The siege ended in mid-April without a Confederate victory, but Fort Hill had demonstrated how effectively shore batteries could neutralize Union naval power in the North Carolina sounds.