North Carolina had been slow to announce her final separation from the
old Union. But she had been prompt in proclaiming her own sovereign
rights within her territory when the National Government had dared to
call them in question. On the day the President had issued his
proclamation she seized Fort Macon at Beaufort. Fort Caswell was taken
and garrisoned by her volunteers, and on April 19, the arsenal at
Fayetteville was captured without bloodshed. The value of this
achievement to the South was incalculable. The Confederacy thus secured
sixty-five thousand stand of arms, of which twenty-eight thousand were
of the most modern pattern.
Virginia had seceded on April 17 and immediately moved to secure under
the resumption of her complete sovereignty all the arms, munitions of
war, ship stores and military posts within her borders. Two posts of
tremendous importance she attempted to seize at once--the great navy
yard at Norfolk and the arsenal and shops at Harper's Ferry. The navy
yard contained a magnificent dry dock worth millions, huge ship houses,
supplies, ammunition, small arms and cannon, and had lying in its basin
several vessels of war, complete and incomplete.
Harper's Ferry contained ten thousand muskets, five thousand rifles and
a complete set of machinery for the manufacture of arms capable of
turning out two thousand muskets a month.
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