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
First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia charge of the Left Wing. With the authorization of corps later that year, the Right Wing was redesignated as the First Corps. At this time, Longstreet's corps contained twenty-one brigades organized into five divisions under major generals Lafayette McLaws, Richard H. Anderson, George E. Pickett, and John B. Hood, and Brigadier General Robert Ransom, Jr. Note: see Fredericksburg order of battle for the command structure of the Army of Northern Virginia at this time. The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought in and around Fredericksburg, Virginia, starting on December 11 and concluding December 15, 1862, between Lee's Army of Northern Virginia