Fort Johnston (North Carolina) 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
USS Azalea (1864) President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet retired into the Deep South in the hope of continuing the struggle. However, Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia on the 9th and General Joseph E. Johnston realized that his army, the only significant body of Confederate troops left in the field, could not prevail. On the 25th, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman informed Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren that he expected General Johnston to surrender the next day and asked the commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron to ". . . watch the east coast and send word round to the west