Editing Wilmington, North Carolina (section)

===Civil War===
{{Main|Wilmington, North Carolina, in the American Civil War}}
[[File:Canon fire at the Battle of Forks Road.jpg|thumb|Cannon firing at a re-enactment of the Battle of Forks Road near the [[Cameron Art Museum]]]]
[[File:Another glimpse of Wilmington National Cemetery IMG 4396.JPG|thumb|[[Wilmington National Cemetery]] has markers dating to the [[American Revolution]] and the [[American Civil War]].]]
During the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], the port was the major base for [[Blockade runners of the American Civil War|Confederate and privately owned blockade runners]], which delivered badly needed supplies from England. The Union mounted a blockade to reduce the goods received by the South. The city was captured by Union forces in the [[Battle of Wilmington]] in February 1865, about one month after the fall of [[Second Battle of Fort Fisher|Fort Fisher]] had closed the port. Wilmington was the last Confederate port to be captured.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Davis |first=Judith H. |year=1978 |title=Wilmington, NC and the Lower Cape Fear Area During the Civil War |url=https://archivesspace.uncw.edu/resources/sc-ms-026 |access-date=September 6, 2023 |website=archivesspace.uncw.edu}}</ref> As nearly all the military action took place some distance from the city, numerous [[antebellum period|antebellum]] houses and other buildings survived the war years.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Battle of Wilmington |url=http://www.thomaslegion.net/battleofwilmington.html |access-date=June 2, 2022 |website=www.thomaslegion.net}}</ref>

In mid-August 1862, Wilmington was devastated by a deadly outbreak of [[yellow fever]]. This fever outbreak was brought about by a blockade runner named ''Kate.'' Sources suggest that the runner had crew members who were sick before the ship landed, but Dr. W.T. Wragg would later write an article in the ''New York Journal of Medicine'' that there were at least five cases in the city before the ship arrived. Dr. Wragg treated many of the yellow fever victims during the outbreak and claimed that the dirtiness of the city and the fumes of the dirty water left by heavy rains caused the disease. By the end of the outbreak at least 1,500 and perhaps as many as 2,000, contracted yellow fever. Of those, between 650 and 800 died, a mortality rate approximately 40 percent. [[Walter Reed]] would later discover in 1900 that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes, so Wilmington's outbreak had to be introduced by a third party and spread by mosquitoes in the city.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Yellow Fever in Wilmington |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/history/health/yellow-fever |access-date=March 12, 2024 |website=NCpedia}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Brisson |first=Jim D. |date=April 30, 2010 |title=City of the Dead: The 1862 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Wilmington, North Carolina |url=https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=mhr |access-date=March 12, 2024 |website=JMU Scholarly Commons}}</ref>