mainland is known as Croatan Sound. Both the island and the sound are about long. The sound at its widest point is a little more than across, the island about half that. On the eastern side of the island is Roanoke Sound, much narrower, shallower, and less important. Several North Carolina cities were sited on the sounds, among them New Bern (usually written New Berne in the mid-nineteenth century), Beaufort, Edenton, and Elizabeth City. Others, not lying directly on the sounds, were accessible to the rivers that emptied into them. As much as a third of the state is in their watershed. Through most of the first year of the Civil War, the Confederate forces retained control of the sounds, so that coastwise water-borne commerce of the eastern part of the state was unimpeded. The sounds were linked to Norfolk, Virginia by the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal and the Dismal Swamp Canal. The blockade of Norfolk could not be complete so long as cargoes could reach the city through its back door. Communications were not affected appreciably when Federal forces captured the forts on the Outer Banks at Hatteras Inlet in August 1861, as the Union Navy could not bring its deep-water vessels into the sounds through the shallow inlets. Roanoke Island was the key to control of the Sounds. If controlled by the Union forces, they would have a base that could be attacked only by an amphibious operation, which the Rebels could not mount. If the Union established naval superiority there, all points on the mainland shores would be equally vulnerable to assault. The Confederate defenders would be forced into an impossible situation: they would either have to give up some positions without a fight, or they would have to spread their assets too thin to be of any use. Prelude Confederate defense The defense of Roanoke Island started in an accidental manner. When the Federal fleet appeared off Hatteras Inlet on August 27, 1861, the 3rd Georgia Infantry Regiment was hastily sent from Norfolk to help hold the forts there, but the forts fell before they arrived, so they were diverted to Roanoke Island. They remained there for the next three months, making somewhat desultory efforts to expel the Union forces from Hatteras Island. Little was done to secure the position until early October, when Brig. Gen. Hill was assigned to command the coastal defenses of North