Fort Johnston ( North Carolina ) Fort Johnston was a United States Army post in Brunswick County , North Carolina on Moore Street near Southport , North Carolina . It stands on the west bank of the Cape Fear River , four miles above its mouth . Colonial . Before the construction of Fort Johnston , British settlements along the Carolina coast lacked fortifications to protect them against pirates and privateers , and numerous Spanish attackers exploited this weakness . In response to these attacks , Governor Gabriel Johnston in 1744 appointed a committee to select the best location to construct a fort for the defense of the Cape Fear River region . France meanwhile declared King George ' s War against Britain in 1744 . The Governor of South Carolina agreed to lend ten small cannons for the fort . Facing increasingly bold Spanish privateer raids , the General Assembly of North Carolina colony in April 1745 authorized the construction of " Johnston ' s Fort " near the mouth of the Cape Fear River . In spring 1748 , the legislature appropriated 2000 pounds for construction costs , and people finally began building Fort Johnston . Two Spanish privateers in summer 1748 intended to seize slaves working on construction of the fort . Finding none at the time of their raid , the privateers sailed upriver and attacked Brunswick , North Carolina by sea and land , looting the town and taking hostages over two days . The local militia eventually drove the raiders back to their ships , but the Spanish privateers continued to bombard the town for a third day . Only after one privateering ship accidentally exploded and sank did the fleet retreat toward the sea . Although Governor Johnston declared the fort complete in April 1749 , work on the fortification , the first in North Carolina colony , continued to progress well into the 1750s . North Carolina garrisoned the fort with a few dozen militia soldiers and used it for coastal protection and as a quarantine station for incoming mariners . The militia men included Captain Robert Howe , first stationed at Fort Johnston in 1766 . American Revolution . American patriots attacked home of Josiah Martin , British royal governor of North Carolina colony , at New Bern , North Carolina , on 24 April 1775 ; Governor Martin then sent his family to New York , transferred his headquarters to Fort Johnston on 2 June 1775 , and instigated a plot to arm the slaves . After the patriots discovered this plot , John Ashe of the Wilmington Committee of Safety led a group of patriotic colonists in a plot against Fort Johnson in July 1775 . Governor Martin and his supporters removed most military stores , dismounted the cannon of the fort , and fled aboard the British sloop - of - war " Cruizer " at anchor in the Cape Fear River . American patriots controlled , burnt , and destroyed Fort Johnston , including the home of its commandant . Governor Martin rallied Loyalist forces from his offshore redoubt . During winter 1775 / 1776 , British army sent seven regular regiments and two companies of artillery to the lower Cape Fear region , aspiring to rouse Loyalist colonists to take arms to restore Royal Governor Martin to power . Colonel James Moore , however , routed a numerically superior force of Scottish Highlanders in Battle of Moore ' s Creek Bridge on 27 February 1776 , and the British abandoned their strategy . The British fleet still maintained some control of the region for the succeeding few years . In 1778 , North Carolina General Assembly appropriated £5000 to rebuild Fort Johnston and named Captain Robert Ellis to command the fort . When British Major James Henry Craig entered the region on 25 January 1781 , Captain Ellis left Fort Johnston . Major Craig aimed to establish a supply base for General Charles Cornwallis and probably destroyed the nascent Fort Johnston again . General Cornwallis later surrendered to American General George Washington after Siege of Yorktown , Virginia , on 19 October 1781 . American troops under General Griffith Rutherford advanced toward Wilmington in mid - November 1781 , and British Major Craig withdrew . Antebellum period . Following the American Revolution , peace prevailed , and Fort Johnston underwent a period of physical decay . The community of Smithville , North Carolina , ( later renamed Southport ) gradually developed around the fort . Benjamin Smith apparently opposed incorporation of the town in the state General Assembly in 1790 ; however , the legislature supposedly named the town in his honor to gain his support . His opponents allegedly supported the idea only because they believed that the town would not prosper . The town started with one hundred half - acre lots . In March 1794 with war raging in Europe , the Congress appropriated funds for the first system of Seacoast defense in the United States to fortify sixteen critical ports on the seaboard , provided that states provide the land . North Carolina quickly ceded the land to the federal government . Although reconstruction began in July 1794 , work on Fort Johnston progressed slowly over decades . Politician Benjamin Smith ( North Carolina ) ultimately agreed to sponsor the reconstruction of the fort . Major Joseph Gardner Swift characterized the fortification work at Fort Johnston as " dilapidated " upon inspecting the post in January 1810 . The fort probably contained a seawall , battery , quarters for officers , barracks for enlisted men , powder magazine , bakery , and other buildings . The fort rented a building at the corner of Nash and Howe streets from Smithville town commissioners as a hospital . The Army built quarters for officers at the fort about 1810 . In spring 1812 , the Army formed a new unit , the " Sea Fencibles , " composed of river pilots who resolved to serve on land and sea . Governor William Hawkins assigned four militia companies from coastal southern North Carolina to Fort Johnston to strengthen the defenses of Cape Fear during the War of 1812 . Many locals feared that Fort Johnston provided inadequate defense for the region . The British , however , did not attack the region during the war . After the War of 1812 , an individual sergeant sometimes commanded Fort Johnston , and the Army abandoned it altogether at least once while engaging its troops elsewhere . Nevertheless , the surgeon began to record meteorological observations from the early 1820s . Its garrison departed to fight in Second Seminole War in 1836 . The Army completed Fort Caswell two miles away in 1838 , reducing the importance of Fort Johnston . The Fort Johnston garrison again departed to fight in Mexican – American War in 1846 . Soldiers at Fort Johnston enjoyed cordial relations with the civilian population of Smithville , North Carolina , throughout the antebellum years , making it a desirable posting . Early in January 1861 , a delegation from Wilmington approached Governor John Willis Ellis , seeking his permission to allow seizure of Fort Johnston from the Union forces , but he denied their request . American Civil War . Local rebels , however , did not await secession of North Carolina before seizing Fort Johnston from the Union . They approached the sole caretaker sergeant posted at the fort and demanded its surrender on 8 January 1861 . The Union soldier recognized his inability to mount a defense , conceded to their demands , and informed his superiors in Washington . Governor Ellis , however , compelled the rebels to evacuate the seized fort and return it to Union control . After the fall of Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston , South Carolina , however , Governor Ellis ordered the recapture of Fort Johnston , and the caretaker Ordnance Corps ( United States Army ) sergeant again surrendered it . North Carolina seceded from the Union on 20 May 1861 and joined Confederate States of America . Early in the American Civil War , Fort Johnston emerged as a center of Confederate States Army recruitment and training . Fort Johnston also served as a supply depot for the local system of fortifications , storing and distributing vast quantities of military hardware and sustenance . The Confederacy also massively renovated and upgraded the defenses of the region , including Fort Johnston , Fort Caswell , and Fort Fisher . Five hundred slaves and three hundred Indians in bondage undertook some of the labor on this huge construction program . The Confederacy increasingly depended on blockade runners breaking through the Union Navy lines to maintain trade necessary to sustain the war effort . With two inlets on the Cape Fear River , dangerous shoals to trap Union ships lacking the knowledge of local river pilots , the Cape Fear River made an ideal spot for blockade running . Fort Johnston coordinated these attempts and provided critical protective cover to Confederate shipping . The first Confederate steamer to run the Union blockade entered Wilmington in December 1861 , and trade through Port of Wilmington increased through 1862 , especially after the Union Navy successfully sealed Charleston , South Carolina , to Confederate shipping in summer 1862 . An average of one ship a day ran the blockade successfully throughout 1863 and 1864 . The fort and its garrison maintained the security of the Cape Fear River against Union army and naval forces with weapons , munitions , and supplies imported from Europe , Canada , Bermuda , Cuba , and eventually other Caribbean territories . Railroads carried goods from Wilmington , North Carolina , to Richmond , Virginia , providing critical supplies to Confederate General Robert E . Lee and his Confederate Army of Northern Virginia . The Confederacy in late 1862 renamed Fort Johnston as Fort Branch in honor of Confederate Brigadier General Lawrence O ' Bryan Branch , a local who died in Battle of Antietam . In 1863 , the Confederate Army renamed Fort Branch as Fort Pender in honor of Confederate Major General William Dorsey Pender , who died of wounds sustained at Battle of Gettysburg . In late 1864 , President Abraham Lincoln , determined to deal a " mortal blow " to the Confederacy , developed a strategy with his military advisors to cease the only significant sustained blockade running activity , that originating from the Cape Fear River outlet . On 24 December 1864 , Union warships began an intense bombardment of nearby Fort Fisher , and after a persistent onslaught , Union forces captured the vastly undermanned Fort Fisher on the evening of 15 January 1865 . Brigadier General Louis Jagger Hébert then commanded Fort Pender . Facing thousands of Union troops , the Confederate garrisons in the area withdrew to Wilmington , North Carolina , and Union forces seized an undamaged Fort Pender on 17 / 18 January 1865 . Union Naval Lieutenant William B . Cushing led the first contingent of Yankees into Smithville , North Carolina , took the 44 sick or wounded occupants of the Confederate hospital at Fort Pender as prisoners , met with a committee of citizens , demanded the surrender of all private arms , and raised the Flag of the United States . Union troops staged at Fort Pender for their advance against Fort Anderson ( North Carolina ) and thence into Wilmington , which fell on 22 February 1865 . The Confederacy surrendered and vanished in spring 1865 , and military Reconstruction of the American South began thence . At the conclusion of the American Civil War , name of Fort Pender reverted to Fort Johnston . Postwar period . After the American Civil War , the War Department generally moved to reduce the number of coastal fortifications and the number of troops in the Army . United States Army , however , continued to garrison Fort Johnston through Reconstruction . In December 1880 , the Army transferred the garrison from Fort Johnston to Washington , District of Columbia . On 21 February 1881 , the government officially ended role of Fort Johnston in Seacoast defense in the United States . In June 1881 , Signal Corps ( United States Army ) reoccupied the fort . The facility later passed to the Weather Bureau , United States Army Corps of Engineers , and Surveying Corps . United Service Organizations occupied the fort during World War II . During the early 1950s , Fort Johnston hosted officers from an air rescue unit of United States Air Force . Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point opened in 1955 and used Fort Johnston . From the 1950s , the facility maintained housing for four military families and one unaccompanied soldier . The family of the commanding officer typically lived at the main building at Fort Johnston . National Register of Historic Places listings in Brunswick County , North Carolina , added Fort Johnston on 7 June 1974 . Decommissioning . After 2004 , the Army declared Fort Johnston surplus and ceased operations , independent of the Base Realignment and Closure process . North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport opened on the former fort property .