150 years ago today President Lincoln lifted the blockade of Norfolk, Fernandina and Pensacola because those ports had “for some time past been in the military possession of the United States, [and] it is deeemd advisable that they should be opened to domestic and foreign commerce”.
On that same day, “The Confederate raider CSS Chickamauga under Lieutenant John Wilkinson runs the Union blockade off Wilmington, North Carolina, covered by a fog, and anchors under the guns of Fort Fisher.” High tide lifted the ship over a bar and the Chickamauga escaped from the fire of Union ships up the Cape Fear River.[1]
- [1]Fredriksen, John C. Civil War Almanac. New York: Checkmark Books, 2008. Print. page 521-522.↩