Webpack dev server with ExpressJs

Ok so I have a very simple app with create-react-app. Now I'm using ExpressJS to handle API calls that I am making with the $.ajax() method inside of my react app within the componentWillMount() method.

So all the React front end has is a simple form with 1 input field and submit like so:

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import $ from 'jquery';
import './App.css';

class App extends Component {


  componentDidMount(){

      $('form').on('submit', function(e) {
        e.preventDefault();

        $.ajax({
          url: '/api',
          type: 'post',
          data: $('form').serialize(),
          dataType: 'json',
          success: function(data) {
            console.log('successful ajax request made!');
          }
        });

      });
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <div className="App">
        <form method="POST">
          <input type="text" name="title" />
          <input id="submit" type="submit" />
        </form>
      </div>
      );
  }
}

export default App;

Now my express route look like this:

var express = require("express");
var router = express.Router();

router.post("/api", function(req, res, next){
    console.log(req.body);
});

module.exports = router;

THE PROBLEM

When running create-react-app with npm start it goes to localhost:3000 do to the Webpack local dev server and when I fire off my app.js in my server directory with node server/app.js is goes to localhost:3001 because they cannot run in the same port.

Because of this I cannot make proper API calls without getting an error showing that the POST request has failed.

So now the golden question is how can I make API calls from a local server on 2 different ports?

If you need any more info about my code i'd be more than happy to post it. Help is greatly appreciated, thank you!