Eastern NC Residents Fought, Died for Union In Civil War

ENC Residents Fought, Died for Union In Civil War

By Christopher Thomas - Public Radio East • JUL 18, 2016

Thousands of men from North Carolina enlisted to fight in the Civil War, many them for the Confederacy, but some – including 1,300, white, eastern North Carolinians – went against their state’s government and fought for the Union Army. They were later joined by nearly 1,100 black men from region.

Those decisions pit brother against brother and for some, it resulted in paying the ultimate price – on the battle field and the gallows.

"I’m standing in front of a monument in Downtown Greenville – one that commemorates, in its own words, 'Our Confederate Dead.' It was commemorated in 1914. At that time, there were still those who remembered the War Between the States. Just down the street from here about 2 blocks away, at a city park, flags fly overhead. One of them? The Stars and Bars. The Old Confederacy still looms large in eastern North Carolina. But here in Pitt County, and throughout much of the region, the Union held strong and had plenty of support. "

“North Carolina was always considered by Lincoln and those of the north to be most friendly of the southern states.”

Dr. Donald Collins, a Civil War historian based in Greenville.

North Carolina was the last state to secede and had a large “stay” contingency. Secessionists finally won the day on May 20, 1861 after two referendums on the matter.

Dr. Collins says the state’s hand was forced after the Battle at Ft. Sumter a month prior and newly elected President Abraham Lincoln vowed to march 70,000 federal troops southward.

“From pre-revolution through 1860, there was this idea that your home state was your country. Remember, Thomas Jefferson would say ‘I’m going home to my country,’ he was going home to Virginia. Remember, Robert E. Lee says he can’t fight against his country. His country was Virginia.”

Still, the Confederate cause was less than compelling to many throughout the state – especially slaves and poor, white farmers and laborers. Secession widened an already prominent chasm between the wealthy planters and the working class.

Gerald Prokopowicz is a professor at East Carolina University. He teaches classes on public history and the Civil War.

“The less likely a person was to own slaves, the less likely they were to support the Confederacy. So there was a lot of support among poor, white residents of eastern North Carolina for the union troops when they first arrived.”

Those white loyalists – called Buffaloes – got their chance to wear the Union Blue in 1862, when the 1st North Carolina Regiment was established in Beaufort County.

Their work was, by and large, unglamorous.

“And these soldiers were used to garrison areas, sort of second line service. They were not front rank troops, they were not going to fight in a pitched battle but would be used for garrisons for fighting against guerillas. And they represented, probably, the high point of cooperation between white, eastern North Carolinians and the Union occupiers.”

But troops saw some action and civilians served as scouts for Union soldiers. One of the most dramatic moments for the 1st North Carolina came during the Siege of Little Washington – which lasted 3 weeks in 1863.

Dr. Collins sets the scene.

“During that battle – I can still picture it today, near where that little bridge is in Little Washington – there was artillery in the cross-streets. There was cavalry, Union and Confederate, charging up and down the streets – the main streets and other streets. There was a gunboat in the river firing, a Union gunboat, naturally, into the Confederates. And it was so dark that they could hardly see each other so there was some hand-to-hand fighting.”

That year, eastern North Carolina conceived another Union unit – the 1st North Carolina Regiment of New Bern. Later, they’d become the 35th U.S. Colored Troops Regiment.

Dr. Prokopowicz said they were mostly local slaves who made dangerous trips for a new life off the plantation.

“Men who came in volunteered from surrounding areas, refugees had been escaping from throughout the region for months up to this time. And now they had a destination; they could get here, they could serve in the Army, it would mean they would be paid, it would mean they could demonstrate their loyalty to the Union, their fitness for citizenship, stake a claim in the post-war, political landscape. They wanted to fight and the 35th USCT definitely got its chance to fight.”

They saw action in eastern North Carolina, South Carolina, Fort Pillow in Tennessee, and most famously in Olustee, Florida. Though the Union Army was defeated, an officer of the famous 54th Massachusetts Regiment wrote afterwards that “the 1st North Carolina led thus splendidly to battle.”

“You have a lot of dramatic stories about this (black troops serving during the Civil War). A lot of it is only now really being talked about, really being publicized for the public. Historians know it. You can go to the library and read about any of these stories. But the key is not what historians read about in libraries, it’s what do kids learn about in 5th grade? What do people see in movies? It’s what do we see in museums and battlefields where the public goes to get its history?”

The stories and acts of southern Unionists have been forgotten over time; valor and misconduct covered by broad brush strokes.

Disorganization and chaos plagued the original 1st and, later, the 2nd North Carolina Regiments. It was founded toward the end of 1863, also in Beaufort County.

“There was a company up on the Roanoke River and when…a Union officer came up there, he basically described them as a bunch of drunks and so-forth and they were disgraced.”

Morale hit an all-time low after the infamous Kinston Hangings on Feb. 15, 1864, when General George Pickett ordered the execution of former Confederate soldiers who fought for the Union in New Bern.

More than 20 men were killed.

“They were local people. They were right from around Lenoir County and Craven County and so forth. Their family came and watched them hang. That struck fear in the North Carolina regiments on both sides.”

But both white and black Unionists kept fighting through the end of the war. For some in eastern North Carolina, things went, relatively, back to normal. Others were met with hostility, branded with a new term – “scallywag” – for their service and support to the Union.

Few struck harder or faster against scallywags than the Ku Klux Klan. In their early years, they had strongholds in the piedmont and outposts in eastern North Carolina counties – including Jones, Sampson, and Lenoir.

“They’re trying to prevent a rise in political opposition to their control in the region, and it continues on through reconstruction, it continues on through the 20th century.”

Black and Buffalo regiments were forgotten over time by the public at large, Dr. Prokopowicz believes, due in large part to political power structures that favor a more pro-Confederacy narrative.

“When you see the monument outside of the Pitt County Courthouse to ‘Our Confederate Dead…’ that’s a clear, political symbol that this is territory controlled by the descendants of the Confederate dead, not the Union dead, who might be just as numerous but they don’t get a monument. They don’t control the courthouse, they don’t control the power, and that monument is put up there, partly, out of piety to one’s ancestors, but partly to make a clear, political statement.”

Revisionist history, in favor of and disdain toward both sides of the conflict, have been stumbling blocks in telling the war’s true stories. Dr. Collins believes a more nuanced view of the Civil War is desperately needed by society at large.

He’s a Florida native who still feels strongly about his southern identity, despite acknowledging flaws in its past, and hopes Confederate and Union displays can stand side by side.

“People who fought for the Union tend to be forgotten by North Carolina. People researching their…ancestors and they say ‘my ancestors come from North Carolina’ they’re expecting to find them in the Confederate Army, they’re shocked when they find out they’re in the Union Army.”

The full story of Unionists in eastern North Carolina will never be known completely. But in a tumultuous era as this, when race and class threaten to tear the nation apart once more, revisiting moments of history with a critical and compassionate eye is a civic and social duty and necessity.

Interview Source: https://www.publicradioeast.org/.../enc-residents-fought...