Although Fort Johnston was originally a British fort, a few years into the Revolutionary War, the Colonies recognized that it could be a valuable place to have a fort, and in 1778 they appropriated the money to have it rebuilt. That fort was also destroyed and, although reconstruction began in 1794, it took many years to complete the project.

Time and again Fort Johnston was destroyed or abandoned, and then repaired or refurbished. The fort regained importance during the Civil War but was officially removed from seacoast defense in 1881. For many years it held multiple military-adjacent agencies or tasks, until it was finally decommissioned altogether in 2004.

Today it holds the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport.

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