Browse Items (916 total)

SPECIAL ORDERS, HDQRS. SEVENTEENTH ARMY CORPS, Numbers 63. Near Rockfish Creek, N. C., March 10, 1865. I. Division commanders will cause a sufficient number of good cattle to be collected in the country to have fifteen days' supply of beef…

Over 10,000 enslaved persons seeking freedom fled to eastern North Carolina, primarily to New Bern and Roanoke Island,after the region was captured by Union troops in 1862. Once behind Union lines these African Americans supported the U.S. war…

Behold! the furious storm is rolling, Which border fiends, confederates, raise, The dogs of war, let loose, are howing, And lo! our infant cities blaze, And shall we calmly view the ruin, While lawless force with giant stride,Spreads desolation far…

Historian David Williams relays that “roughly 200,000 blacks, most of them refugees from slavery, served in the Union armed forces." (Williams 2014, 5) Though many people may not know this fact, runaway slaves' participation in the Union army…

As late as 1830, southern whites still sometimes debated whether slavery should, or could, be eliminated. The state of Virginia nearly abolished slavery in 1836, after the terror of Nat Turner’s Rebellion. In North Carolina, people wondered…

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, both the North and South relied on volunteer soldiers. These volunteers first signed on for fixed terms (ninety days in the North, six months in the South) because they anticipated a short war. Many signed on…

It has become a commonplace that the war changed how Americans thought of their country. During the antebellum years, most people said “the United States are . . .” After the war, however, they said “The United States is . .…

Newbern {N.C.} Mch 21 /62 I have the honor of reporting the following movements in my department since my hurrid report of the 16” inst- The detailed report of the Engagement on the 14” is not yet finished, but I hope will be ready to…

General Ambrose E. Burnside was born on May 23, 1824. Burnside began his military career upon graduation from the United States Military in 1847. He would become a second lieutenant during the Mexican-American War and would be put on garrison duty in…