Thirty caches are located in five different regions throughout NC. Instructions for sending the documentation are in the passport. Once all five regions are completed, you have earned a special NC Civil War trackable geocoin. Mail the passport to the address inside the passport – then your passport will be returned with your unique coin.
All of the containers are the same - camouflaged 6 inch PVC tubes - the code word you need for your passport is inside the container on a laminated card and also taped on the container that holds the log sheet. Date your logbook and add your code word in the numbered area for the cache. As the containers may become over tightened, carry a TOTT to ease the opening process.
Passports will be available at the event, some Civil War Museums in NC, and via mail if you send me you address or you can download your passport here.
Albemarle & Chesapeake Canal
The Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal opened in 1859, just before the Civil War began. It consisted of two “cuts” or locks: the first, in Virginia, linked the Elizabeth and North Landing Rivers south of Norfolk; the second, in North Carolina, joined Currituck Sound with the North River. Vessels could sail to and from Norfolk and Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. Ships carried supplies via the canal to build Confederate Forts Hatteras and Clark on the Outer Banks. Between August 1861 and January 1862 more than 200 military vessels passed through the canal. Commodore W.F. Lynch wrote to Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory, “[W]ithout the use of the canal, … supplies from, and imperatively req-uisite repairs at[,] Gosport navy-yard [Norfolk] could not have been received or effected.” southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina largely in Federal hands, the canal reopened to patrol and supply duties until the end of the war. After the Battle of Elizabeth City and the destruction of the Confederate Mosquito Fleet in February 1862, the Confederates scuttled ships to block the North Carolina cut. The Federals had the same idea to stall Confederate traffic and sent five vessels to the North River “with prize schooners in tow to obstruct the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal,” only to find that their adver-saries had already begun the task. After the Union occupation of Norfolk, the removal of the obstructions became a Federal priority. With U.S. Congressman George W. Julian of Indiana, a Republican member of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, took the mail boat Fawn to Roanoke Island to find out whether sut-lers there were price-gouging the soldiers to whom they sold goods. On February 9, 1864, on the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, Confederates attacked the ship, killed or wounded 7 people, captured 29 passengers including Julian, and burned the Fawn. Julian was soon released at Elizabeth City and continued to Roanoke Island.