Christopher C. "Kit" Bland, a private in Battery K, 2nd North Carolina Artillery, served at Fort Fisher when Federal forces began bombarding the fort on December 24, 1864. As the Union fleet concentrated fire on the garrison flag over Battery Pulpit, headquarters of Col. William Lamb, Lamb ordered the flag raised at Mound Battery to draw fire from a less essential point in the defense. When Capt. Daniel Munn asked for a volunteer, Bland stepped forward, climbed the bare flagpole under shelling, and tied the flag at the top. After Federal fire shifted to Mound Battery and tore the flag loose, he climbed the pole again and secured it with his neckerchief, while a shell passed so close on his descent that it brushed his hair. Bland escaped injury that day but suffered an ankle wound from a shell fragment during the second major Union attack on Fort Fisher on January 13, 1865, was captured five days later, and after infection set in, his leg was amputated below the knee. He survived, later became the pastor here in his later years, and in January 1995 received the "Confederate Medal of Honor" from the Sons of Confederate Veterans.