Carried Into War
A Soldier's Life
Realities of War
The Home Front
Facing the Grim Reaper
Breaking the Blockade
The Last Campaigns
An Uncertain Future
Acknowledgments
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Eastern North Carolina
The Struggle for Victory
In Victory and In Defeat
Prison Life
North Carolinians awakened to the realities of the war when United States warships and troops attacked the state's coastal counties in late 1861 and early 1862. Much of eastern North Carolina stayed under Union occupation after 1862. Using captured coastal towns as bases of operation, United States forces made repeated raids into the interior counties. Hundreds of African American slaves escaped to the Federal lines from nearby plantations. With most Tar Heel troops off fighting in Virginia, the state had no way to force the enemy out.
The Burnside Expedition
Our artillery ammunition having been exhausted and our right flank having been turned by an overwhelming force of the enemy, I was compelled to yield the place [Roanoke Island].
—Colonel Henry M. Shaw, Eighth Regiment North Carolina State Troops,
February 1862
With the fall of the Hatteras Inlet forts to the Federals in late August 1861, the United States War Department moved to extend its control over North Carolina's sound and coastal regions. On February 7, 1862, a Union force of 7,500 men under Brigadier General Ambrose E. Burnside landed on Roanoke Island, forcing the surrender of the Confederate garrison the next day. A month later, Burnside sailed his army from the island and captured the important town of New Bern in Craven County on March 14. From New Bern, he moved thirty-five miles southeast and seized Fort Macon, at Beaufort Inlet in Carteret County. These victories gave Union forces control of the strategically important Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. Thousands of liberated African Americans rejoiced in their new freedom.
Thomas Sparrow
Thomas Sparrow lived in Beaufort County, where he enlisted at age forty-two on April 22, 1861. He was appointed captain of Company K (Washington Grays), Tenth Regiment North Carolina State Troops (First Regiment North Carolina Artillery) on May 16, 1861. Sparrow was captured at Fort Hatteras on August 29, 1861; exchanged; promoted to major on January 9, 1863; and transferred to regimental headquarters as a staff officer.
Henry M. Shaw
Born in Currituck County, Henry M. Shaw was appointed colonel of the Eighth Regiment North Carolina State Troops on May 16, 1861. Shaw was captured at Roanoke Island on February 8, 1862. Exchanged, he returned to military duty and later died in action near New Bern on February 1, 1864.
John Gallagher
John Gallagher was born in Washington, Beaufort County, on April 18, 1830. He graduated from the University Medical College in New York in 1858. Gallagher served as a surgeon in eastern North Carolina and died on July 30, 1862, from blood poisoning caused by a "dissection wound" during an autopsy at a Confederate hospital in Wilson, Wilson County.
Samuel B. Spruill
Samuel B. Spruill resided in Bertie County when North Carolina left the Union. He was appointed colonel of the Nineteenth Regiment North Carolina Troops (Second Regiment North Carolina Cavalry) and served in eastern North Carolina. Spruill resigned his commission on March 29, 1862.
Edward Stanly
A former Whig congressman from eastern North Carolina who had settled in California in the 1850s, Edward Stanly was appointed military governor of North Carolina in 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln. On May 26, 1862, Stanly arrived in New Bern to govern the eastern section of the state under Union occupation. Confederate North Carolinians viewed Stanly as a traitor, and his treatment of blacks angered Northern abolitionists. Frustrated in his dealings with the Lincoln administration, Stanly resigned when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
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African American Freedom
Of all that I ever met, I cannot remember one that did not love liberty and hate slavery. All desired the success of the Union cause, and the overthrow of the rebellion. Loyalty, with them, was seemingly a personal matter of the most intense importance to pray for, to work, and, if need be, to die for.
—Vincent Colyer, former superintendent of the poor in New Bern, 1864
After capturing New Bern in March 1862, United States forces used the port town as a base for military operations along the coast and into the interior counties. Soon New Bern became an important refugee center for newly freed African American slaves and white unionists. Some former slaves acted as spies for the Federal army behind Confederate lines, or served as guides and scouts during Union raids on nearby plantations and farms. In time, many African American and white unionists joined the United States Army as soldiers.
Abraham H. Galloway
Fugitive slave and abolitionist Abraham H. Galloway returned to North Carolina in 1862 or 1863. He worked as an intelligence agent for General Benjamin F. Butler and other Union officers and may have been the chief African American spy in North Carolina. Galloway probably identified coastal landing sites for the Federal army and supplied information on the location and strength of Confederate forces. He also used his influence to encourage free blacks and former slaves to enlist in North Carolina African American Union regiments or to work as laborers for Federal forces. By early 1863, Galloway had become eastern North Carolina's most important spokesman for African American rights. He envisioned a life in which blacks and whites enjoyed legal and social equality. In the spring of 1864, Galloway joined a delegation of black leaders who met with President Abraham Lincoln on the issue of African American suffrage. In the fall, he attended the National Convention of the Colored Citizens of the United States in Syracuse, New York.
Sylvia
A former slave and accomplished seamstress, Sylvia owned a successful sewing business in Union-occupied New Bern. She was described by a Federal soldier as "a woman of very good sense and well developed reflective faculties."
Mary Jane Connor
Mary Jane Connor, a former slave, operated a boardinghouse in New Bern after the town's capture by the Union army in 1862. A Federal soldier called Mary Jane "about the most remarkable colored woman I ever saw."
Edwin G. Champney
A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Edwin G. Champney belonged to the Fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and served eight months in eastern North Carolina in 1862-1863. During his time in the state, Champney compiled a sketchbook of pen-and-ink drawings of topics that interested him.
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James City
New Bern became a mecca for newly freed slaves in eastern North Carolina. Here Union officials established camps to feed, clothe, and house the freedmen. A refugee settlement across the Trent River from New Bern became known as James City, after former Union chaplain Horace James, who served as superintendent for Negro affairs in New Bern.
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