It was the only port to which blockade running was at all safe enough to be lucrative.

The Rebels held the strong forts of Caswell and Fisher, at the mouth of Cape Fear River, and outside, the Frying Pan Shoals, which extended along the coast forty or fifty miles, kept our blockading fleet so far off, and made the line so weak and scattered, that there was comparatively little risk to the small, swift-sailing vessels employed by the blockade runners in running through it.

The only way that blockade running could be stopped was by the reduction of Forts Caswell and Fisher, and it was not stopped until this was done.
Before the war Wilmington was a dull, sleepy North Carolina Town, with as little animation of any kind as a Breton Pillage.

The only business was the handling of the tar, turpentine, rosin, and peanuts produced in the surrounding country, a business never lively enough to excite more than a lazy ripple in the sluggish lagoons of trade.

But very new wine was put into this old bottle when blockade running began to develop in importance.