headquartered at the Fort Fisher State Historic Site, says that the Fanny and Jenny’s final resting place is about 300 yards offshore, just north of the rock jetty at Masonboro Inlet. Morris dived on the shipwreck in his boyhood days and was told by local veteran divers that it was the Fanny and Jenny. Archaeologists have since pinpointed three wrecks along Wrightsville Beach’s south end they believe are the former blockade-runners the Fanny and Jenny, Dee and Emily. The historical record supports that disposition. Writing to his wife on March 3, 1864, William Keeler said that he and his comrades on the USS Florida “could see the wreck of the Dee 300 yards above the Fanny & Jenny, and the Emily beached about 300 yards above the Dee.” Even if the southernmost blockade-runner wreck at Wrightsville Beach is indeed the Fanny and Jenny, what about the legendary sword? Is it still on board the ship or buried nearby? Perhaps Billy Ray Morris said it best: “That sword is the Holy Grail of blockade running at Wilmington during the Civil War.” Chris E. Fonvielle Jr. is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. His new book is Faces of Fort Fisher, 1861-1864. Dr. Dougald MacMillan of Sloop Point Plantation stands atop the skeletal remains of a blockade-runner along the Cape Fear coast. William F. Keeler, shown in the back row, second from right with a group of officers on board the USS Monitor, July 9, 1862. www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com 23 WBM LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, LC-B815- 487 LOT 4182. PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES F. GIBSON. COURTESY OF DR. CHRIS E. FONVIELLE JR.
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