SALISBURY — Fame Preservation Group, Inc. hosted their first annual Charles F. Fisher Banquet at Christiana Lutheran Church’s fellowship hall to pay tribute to the life of the Salisbury native and Civil War veteran. 

Before the war, Fisher acted as a farmer, publisher, president of the North Carolina Railroad and state senator. After he enlisted in the Confederate Army, Fisher joined the 6th North Carolina Regiment and quickly became a colonel within the first year of the war. He died in the First Battle of Bull Run or the First Battle of Manassas in July 1861. 

“This is a commemorative event to the legacy of Colonel Fisher and since he’s the most notable Confederate of Rowan County for his military contributions and beyond the war and before the war,” Fame Preservation Group Inc. President Greg Lambeth said. “We thought naming it after him would be most notable.” 

Fort Fisher Historian Harry Parham and Bernie Sahadi of the Rowan County Veterans Council were the banquet’s main speakers. 

Fort Fisher, located at Kure Beach, is named after Colonel Fisher. Parham grew up near it and he still holds an emotional connection to the fort even after all these years. 

“Fort Fisher has been a place that my family has always called a refuge,” Parham said. “What we don’t tell a lot of people, but Fort Fisher is also a very sacred place because it’s a graveyard.” 

The mile-long fort was made out of palmetto logs and sand to adapt to the bombs used during the war. It fell in January 1865. 

“I don’t know why Fort Fisher stands out the way it does. I’ve been to Antietam, I’ve been to Gettysburg,” Parham said. 

Sahadi, a 25-year Marine veteran, went back as far as the late 18th century when describing the origins of the United States Marine Corps. 

“We were born in a bar,” Sahadi said. “The United States Marine Corps was born in Tun Tavern, it’s no longer there, but the way they got people to enlist in the Marine Corps was to offer them a small stipend pay a month. Plus, a bottle of rum. Once you get guys drunk, they’ll sign anything.” 

Sahadi told stories of how the Marine Corps assisted in the capture of abolitionist John Brown right before the Civil War began at Harpers Ferry and that they participated in the Battle of Fort Fisher.

“When we talk about the War of Northern Aggression or the Civil War, we usually talk about the Army or the Navy. Has anybody here ever heard about the Marine Corps? Does anybody know there was a Marine Corps on both sides?” Sahadi said. “What separates Marines from the Army? We’re supposed to be amphibious. We’re supposed to be able to fight from ship to shore and take land targets. We are Naval infantry.” 

Lambeth later said that the banquet, which was the group’s first fundraiser of the year, raised $318.