Location: US 401 (Raleigh Road) in Fayetteville
County: Cumberland
Original Date Cast: 1950
Alongside the Veterans Hospital in Fayetteville stands a set of breastworks, an intact remnant of the fortification built near the end of the Civil War as a defense against General William T. Sherman’s forces. Located north of Fayetteville, the earthworks stand as a silent testament to Confederate ingenuity and have been part of the National Register of Historic Places since 1981.
Following the fall of Columbia, South Carolina, to Sherman’s troops, the next major goal of the Union forces was to capture Fayetteville. The city was home to the former U.S. Arsenal, constructed in 1838. The arsenal was captured by Confederate forces in 1861 following North Carolina’s secession and at one time was producing up to 500 rifles per month for the Confederacy.
Fayetteville manufacturers produced considerable amounts of cloth and other goods for the Confederate Army. Sherman’s next objective was to capture the North Carolina Railroad and its shops at Goldsboro.
After Sherman took Columbia on February 17, 1865, construction commenced on the breastworks, and they were completed by the end of the month. The earthen structure was positioned north of the city, because it was believed Sherman would swing around Fayetteville by traveling alongside the Cape Fear River and capture the railroad first. The breastworks were built by the Home Guards, males either under the age of sixteen or too old to serve, handicapped and injured Confederate soldiers, and slave labor.
With a total length of nearly 2,500 feet, the site had two main components for the structure: linear breastworks and oval or circular cannon emplacements. Extending from Raleigh Road (present US 401), the breastworks form a U with the lateral sides facing outwards. However, the defenses were never used.
To the surprise of the citizens of Fayetteville, Sherman’s troops entered the town from the southwest on March 11, 1865, without facing any resistance from the defenders. Sherman occupied Fayetteville for five days. Over that time, his soldiers burned what was left in the arsenal and destroyed the buildings on the site. Some of the machinery had been taken out that morning and transported via wagon to Greensboro.
The breastworks have remained relatively untouched since the nineteenth century, the exception being the construction of the veteran’s hospital in 1938.
References:
John A. Oates, The Story of Fayetteville and the Upper Cape Fear (1950)
Roy Parker Jr., Cumberland County: A Brief History (1990)
Kenneth W. Robinson, “Archaeological Monitoring of the Construction of a Geriatric Park at The Confederate Breastworks Historic Site,” prepared for Veterans Administration Medical Center, Fayetteville (1990)
N.C. Office of Archives and History, National Register of Historic Places files (1981)