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Chapter VIII Hatteras Inlet—Roanoke Island.
the reader who has examined the coast charts or maps of the
United States is aware that low, long, sandy islets fringe almost the entire coasts of what are known as the
Southern States.
There are numerous inlets between these islets that have a certain degree of permanency, but many of them close for a series of years, and are found open again after some gale of unusual severity.
Between
Cape Henry and
Cape Hatteras are several of these ephemeral ‘inlets’ or channels, between the sea and inland waters.
Thirteen miles south of
Cape Hatteras is Hatteras Inlet, and eighteen miles farther, Ocracoke, the bend of that coast from the cape being west-southwest and, looking toward
Cape Henry, north by east.
Hatteras Inlet has more depth over the bar, and its regimen is more permanent than any of the other entrances into the sounds of
North Carolina.
It was the most convenient entrance for the distribution of supplies to the Confederate army in
Virginia, and bordering the inland waters were produced in great abundance what are known as ‘naval stores.’
These, and considerable cotton grown in that region, gave ample cargoes for outward bound blockade-running vessels.
No sooner was the
Civil War fairly begun, and the
Navy Yard at
Norfolk in the possession of the
Confederates, than
