Book excerpt: P>The only comprehensive account of the Battle of Fort Fisher and the basis for the television documentary Confederate Goliath, Rod Gragg's award-winning book chronicles in detail one of the most dramatic events of the American Civil War. Known as "the Gibraltar of the South," Fort Fisher was the largest, most formidable coastal fortification in the Confederacy, by late 1864 protecting its lone remaining seaport -- Wilmington, North Carolina. Gragg's powerful, fast-paced narrative recounts the military actions, politicking, and personality clashes involved in this unprecedented land and sea battle. It vividly describes the greatest naval bombardment of the war and shows how the fort's capture in January 1865 hastened the South's surrender three months later. In his foreword, historian Edward G. Longacre surveys Gragg's work in the context of Civil War history and literature, citing Confederate Goliath as "the finest book-length account of a significant but largely forgotten episode in our nation's most critical conflict."