North Carolina Declares to dissolve the union :

An ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of North Carolina and the other States united with her, under the compact of government entitled “The Constitution oft he United States.”

   
We, the people of the State of North Carolina in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, That the ordinance adopted by the State of North Carolina in the convention of 1789, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly ratifying and adopting amendments to the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and abrogated.

   We do further declare and ordain, That the union now subsisting between the State of North Carolina and the other States, under the title of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of North Carolina is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

  
 Done in convention at the city of Raleigh, this 20^th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1861, and in the eighty-fifth year of the independence of said State.

Source:  

William Connery
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CIVIL WAR NORTHERN VIRGINIA 1861
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Civil War In North Carolina

Confederate Monument Oakdale Cemetery

Although many major battles did not occurred in North Carolina, the state played an important role during the American Civil War.

The state provided more men (133, 905) for the Confederate cause, than any other state.  This number comprised approximately one-sixth of the Confederate fighting force.   Of that number, one sixth (approximately 20,000) became casualties of war.  Disease took approximately 20,000 Tar Heels lives, too.  According to historian Paul Escott, the state “had only about one-ninth of the Confederacy’s white population,” yet “it furnished one-sixth of its fighting men.”  In sum, 30-percent (approximately 40,000) of those fighting for the Confederacy died during the war.

North Carolina provided numerous generals to the Confederate cause.  The most famous include Braxton Bragg, Daniel H. Hill, William Dorsey Pender, Stephen Dodson Ramseur, Robert F. Hoke, and James J. Pettigrew.   Less famous yet important generals included L.O.B. Branch and Bryan Grimes.

It must be remembered that the American Civil war, at times, pitted North Carolinians against North Carolinian.  Approximately 8,000 men put on the Union blue.  Of them, 3,156 were white and 5,035 were black.

The election of Lincoln in 1861 prompted secessionists to launch a series of statewide local meetings.  In time, the matter of secession was put to the people of North Carolina.  Unionists narrowly defeated the secessionists (47,323 to 46,672).  On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to “put down the rebellion.”  Governor Ellis responded:  “You can get no troops from North Carolina” and a second secession convention was called.  Although many delegates from various counties still wished to remain in the Union, the majority wanted secession.   The state seceded from the Union on May, 20, 1861.  That day was chosen as a celebration of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence in 1775.   

Early in the war, the northeastern region fell into Union hands.  Fort Hatteras and Fort Macon, both protecting the important Hatteras port, were occupied in Spring 1862—the military attacks were aided greatly by the United States Navy, which maintained a strong presence along the North Carolina coast throughout the war.   During the war, guerrilla warfare raged in the mountain region.  During the latter stages of the conflict, mountaineers experienced Union attack and occupation.  The most famous raid in the mountains during the war was General George Stoneman’s cavalry in March 1865.   

Although more major battles occurred in other Southern states, major campaigns were waged in the Old North State.   Most of the major campaigns occurred in 1865, the last year of the war.  After Sherman performed his March to the Sea campaign in Georgia and turned northward and marched through South Carolina, he entered North Carolina.  After General William J. Hardee prolonged Sherman’s advance at Averasboro, General Joseph E. Johnston engaged Sherman’s forces on from March 19-21 at Bentonville; that battle became the last major engagement in the Civil War.  A little over a month later, Sherman accepted the terms of surrender from Johnston at Bennett Place.  

North Carolina was an important state during the conflict.  The state contributed to the Confederate war effort in various ways; the Piedmont region produced crops that fed Confederate forces, and for a few months in 1865, Wilmington provided the Confederacy’s only access to the Atlantic Ocean and European trade.   The state contributed to the Union war effort, too.  From the fall of 1861, much of northeastern North Carolina had fallen into Union hands, and Lincoln established a provisional government, with Edward Stanly as governor.  The ports under Union occupation strengthened the Union war effort as their loss weakened the Confederate effort.  As the Confederates lost more northeastern territory, more slaves fled to Union lines and contraband camps were formed.

Political events in North Carolina influenced Confederate policy.  After John Ellis and Henry Toole Clarke served as governors, Zebulon B. Vance is remembered as the wartime governor.  And he, fairly or unfairly, earned a reputation for being a political thorn in Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s side.  On more than one occasion, Confederate Governor Vance believed the Confederacy took advantage of the Old North State: the Confederacy, he complained, took Tar Heel men away to fight elsewhere while the state’s borders remained undermanned.  In 1864, the Peace Party influenced politics at the local, state, and national levels; however, its membership, although significant, remained a minority of the state’s voting population.

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Sources:

John G. Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill, 1963); Mark L. Bradley, The Battle of Bentonville: The Last Stand in the Carolinas (Mason City, IA, 1996) and This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place (Chapel Hill, 2000); Lindsey S. Butler and Alan D. Watson, eds., The North Carolina Experience: An Interpretive and Documentary History (Chapel Hill, 1984); William S. Powell, ed., Encyclopedia of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, 2006) and North Carolina Through Four Centuries (Chapel Hill, 1989.)

Spanish-American War and North Carolina

The Spanish - American War

During the Spanish-American War (1898), North Carolina provided three infantry regiments named simply the First, Second, and Third Volunteer Infantry Regiment(s). All of these were state militia regiments. The First was the only one to see action in Cuba; the Second disbanded after a short-lived yet infamous term of service in the States, and the Third, an African American regiment, experienced continuous discrimination whether it was stationed in eastern North Carolina or Knoxville, Tennessee. Only two North Carolinians, Worth Bagley and William E. Shipp, died in action.

As in many wars, North Carolina lacked the jingoism so pervasive elsewhere. President McKinley asked the Tar Heel state to provide two regiments of infantry and an artillery battery. The state provided three infantry regiments instead.

Most of the white dissenters called Eastern North Carolina home; by and large the blacks there, however, displayed a more vigorous patriotism and volunteered in greater numbers. As a result, Piedmont and Western North Carolina boys comprised the majority of the First and Second Regiments; in the First Regiment, for example, only one company came from the eastern region.

The camp life of the First Regiment was dull at times yet eventful at others. Within a week of the President’s call for troops, the First Regiment, under the command of Colonel Joseph F. Armfield, assembled at the ill-prepared facilities of Camp Bryan Grimes on what was then the outskirts of Raleigh (look for the marker east of the fairgrounds on Hillsborough St.). While at camp, the men never received paychecks or supplies in a timely manner. Two weeks later, once properly equipped with uniforms and guns, the regiment traveled by rail to encamp in Jacksonville, Florida. Unfortunately, the men’s train collided with another, resulting in the death of one soldier and the injuries of seven others.

Once the regiment arrived safely at Camp Libre in Jacksonville, the regiment experienced many of the food and supply problems. During the particularly rainy season of 1898, in an overcrowded camp that flooded regularly, many men contracted diseases. Meanwhile, the delay of paychecks continued. Yet, Colonel Fitzhugh Lee rejected tobacco tycoon Julius Skakespeare Carr’s offer to loan the troops their pay.

To everyone’s surprise the First was sent to Cuba in December. Meanwhile, U.S. Senator J.C. Pritchard of western North Carolina asked that the regiment be recalled. While in Cuba, however, the First performed only guard duty on the outskirts of Havana.

The Second Regiment was mustered in May 1898. Commanded by W.H.S. Burgwyn, a former Confederate officer, the Second nevertheless performed unimpressively—maybe in part because their pay was delayed. At Raleigh’s Camp Dan Russell, the ill-supplied troops performed poorly in regular drills, and twenty-seven men went AWOL. In six weeks, half of the regiment was disbursed to other camps across the country to perform guard duty. Shortly afterward, the regiment’s poor performance resulted in its disbandment. Before being mustered out, twenty men of the Second died from disease and fifty-five were classified as disabled. Camp life probably took more lives than combat in Cuba would have.

Many volunteers of the First and Second were sons of Confederate veterans, yet they responded to the United States’ call for troops. They evinced a patriotism that would characterize the Southern region throughout the twentieth century.

The history of the Third Regiment is particularly noteworthy. Governor Daniel Lindsey Russell encouraged the formation of a black regiment, one of three formed in the nation during the war. Political opponents accused the Republican governor’s encouragement of the Third’s formation as pandering to the black vote in an age of Fusion politics.

The all-black regiment (excluding white officers) looked forward, as historian Joseph F. Steelman writes, to “prove themselves worthy of the rights and obligations of citizenship.” The Third was first stationed at Fort Macon in North Carolina and then in September transferred to Camp Poland in Knoxville, Tennessee, where the local populace and garrisons treated them horribly; white civilians killed at least four North Carolina blacks. To avoid the cold weather, the troops in November moved to Macon, Georgia. While away from eastern North Carolina, a race riot erupted in Wilmington. On their return to their native state, the men of the Third were treated as pariahs instead of heroes.

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Sources:

Joseph F. Steelman, North Carolina’s Role in the Spanish-American War (Raleigh, 1975) and Webpage of the Sons of Spanish American War Veterans, Micah J. Jenkins Camp, No. 164, http://www.geocities.com/sonsofspanamwar/ (accesed March 28, 2006).

By Troy L. Kickler, North Carolina History Project
Revised on: Tuesday February, 14th, 2006

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North Carollina Secession

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Secession of the state of North Carolina from the American Union occurred on May 20, 1861; this date was chosen to celebrate the anniversary of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence of 1775.  The right of a state to separate from the Federal Union was not seriously questioned during the formation of the American Republic and had even been contemplated by some New England states during the War of 1812.  North Carolina’s secession, however, was more in accord with the doctrines of John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) of South Carolina.   

Some Tar Heel politicians, including Senator Thomas L. Clingman (1812-1897), expressed secessionist views in 1856, when the Republican Party nominated its first presidential candidate.  Secession sentiment, however, was weak prior to the 1860 presidential election of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865).    

North Carolina excluded Lincoln from the ballot.  As a result, the popular vote for president was 48,533 for John C. Breckinridge (1821-1875) of Kentucky, the Southern Democratic candidate; 44,039 for John Bell (1797-1869) of Tennessee, the Constitutional Union nominee; and 2,690 for Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861), the Democratic nominee.  Because Bell and Breckinridge supporters expressed allegiance to the Union, the overall vote reveals a strong Unionist sentiment among Tar Heels.  

The non-slaveholding yeoman farmers made up a majority of Tar Heel voters and constituted the core of Unionist strength. The northeastern and western counties, and portions of the Piedmont, were areas of Union sentiment and, therefore, disinclined to secede over slavery.

The Whig Party, which had disintegrated as a national force by 1860, still commanded a strong following.  Whig politicians like Congressman Zebulon B. Vance (1830-1894) and former Governor and Senator William A. Graham (1804-1875) comprised much of the leadership, though one leading Democrat, William W. Holden (1818-1892), editor of the North Carolina Standard, was among them.     

The secessionists were led primarily by Democrats, including Senator Clingman, Governor John W. Ellis (1820-1861), Congressman Thomas Ruffin (1820-1863), and former Congressman William S. Ashe (1814-1862).  The major secessionist newspaper was the Wilmington Journal, located in slaveholding New Hanover County.  Not surprisingly, the main areas of secessionist strength were in the Coastal counties with large slave populations and in Piedmont counties, especially Mecklenburg, bordering South Carolina.    

The election of Lincoln prompted secessionists to launch a series of statewide local meetings.  The first was held in Cleveland County on November 12, the second in New Hanover on November 19.  The movement was encouraged by the secession of South Carolina on December 20, 1860.

To counter the secessionist fervor, Unionists also convened.  Holden’s Standard effectively upheld the Union cause and expressed hope for compromise.  On January 29, the General Assembly decided to put the convention question to the people on February 28 and voted to send delegates to the Washington Peace Conference on February 4.    

The convention campaign was vigorously waged.  Unionists defined the terms of debate as a question of “Union or Disunion.”  Secessionist attempts to redefine the campaign in terms of self-defense were not successful.  Answering the charge that disunion meant war, secession supporter A. W. Venable (1799-1876) of Granville County declared that he would “wipe up every drop of blood shed in the war with this handkerchief of mine”; this may have been the most memorable statement of the convention campaign.    

Defeating the secessionists by a vote of 47,323 to 46,672, Unionists carried the northeastern counties and most of the Piedmont and western counties.  Because a few Unionists like Vance supported the convention call, the delegate elections are more indicative of actual sentiment; only 39 of the 120 delegates were secessionists.   A few days after the vote, on March 4, Lincoln gave an inaugural address, which many considered conciliatory.    

The secessionists did not give up.  On March 22 and 23, delegates from twenty-five counties assembled in Goldsboro and organized the Southern Rights Party.  They urged the legislature to reconvene and demanded that North Carolina join the Confederacy.  Despite numerous meetings, by early April of 1861, the state seemed no nearer secession than it was in February.  Then, reports came of the April 12 bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina.

On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to “put down the rebellion.”  Governor Ellis responded:  “You can get no troops from North Carolina.”  When word arrived of Lincoln’s summons, Zebulon Vance, with arms upraised, was pleading for the preservation of the Union: “When my hand came down from that impassioned gesticulation,” he said, “it fell slowly and sadly by the side of a secessionist.”

Ellis called a special session of the legislature for May 1 and ordered seizure of all federal property.  The Assembly voted to have a delegate election on May 13 to an unrestricted convention to meet in Raleigh on May 20.  The campaign that followed was characterized more by resignation than enthusiasm, as evidenced by former Unionists’ and secessionists’ speeches disparaging aggression. 

When the convention met, delegates debated whether to secede, as some Unionists suggested, on the basis of “the right of revolution.”  Radical secessionists, however, favored repealing the state’s ratification of the U.S. Constitution as the most appropriate means of leaving the Union.

The convention elected Weldon N. Edwards (1788-1873), a Democratic planter from Warren County, as president.  In a speech, he denounced allying with the “Black Republican Union.”  One-time Unionist George R. Badger (1795-1866) introduced a resolution for separation from the Union based on the right of revolution.  An alternative ordinance, dissolving the Union by repeal of ratification was proposed by F. Burton Craige (1811-1875) of Rowan County.  The Badger proposal was defeated by a vote of 72 to 40, after which the Craige resolution passed unanimously.  Delegates then voted to join the Confederate States of America (CSA).  They also voted, at the request of Governor Ellis, not to put the secession ordinance to a popular vote.  On May 21, President Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) proclaimed North Carolina a Confederate state.

The convention had not been restricted and met three more times before finally adjourning on May 13, 1862.  The convention mostly dealt with military matters, but it also amended the Constitution to permit the ad valorem taxation of slaves and eliminated the disqualification of Jews from holding public office.

North Carolinians seceded reluctantly.  Jonathan Worth (1802-1869) stated publicly: “Lincoln had made us a unit to resist until we repel our invaders or die.”  Privately, however, Worth feared that the South had “commit[ed] suicide.”  The continued strength of Unionist sentiment was revealed a year later when Vance was easily elected governor despite radical secession opposition.  

The Tar Heel State, which only acted after Lincoln called for troops, became a bulwark of the Confederate defense, providing more men and supplies to the CSA and suffering more casualties than any other Southern state.   In the end, most Tar Heels seceded in the name of self-defense.

 

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Sources:

Kemp P. Battle, “The Secession Convention of 1861,” North Carolina Booklet (Raleigh, 1916); James H. Boykin, North Carolina in 1861 (New York, 1961); Daniel W. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (Chapel Hill, 1989); William C. Harris, North Carolina and the Coming of the Civil War (Raleigh, 1988); Hugh T. Lefler, North Carolina History Told by Contemporaries (Chapel Hill, 1956); John G. McCormick, Personnel of the Convention of 1861 (Chapel Hill, 1900); Joseph C. Sitterson, The Secession Movement in North Carolina (Chapel Hill, 1939); Ralph A. Wooster, The Secession Conventions of the South (Princeton, 1962).

By Ronnie W. Faulkner, Campbell University

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See Also:

Related Categories: , Civil War
Related Encyclopedia Entries: John W. Ellis (1820-1862), Bunker Hill Covered Bridge, Salem Brass Band, Confederate States Navy (in North Carolina), United States Navy (Civil War activity), James Iredell Waddell (1824-1886), CSS Neuse, USS Underwriter, Warren Winslow (1810-1862), Prelude to the Battle of Averasboro, The Battle of Averasboro-Day One, Louis Froelich and Company, Louis Froelich (1817-1873), North Carolina Button Factory, CSA Arms Factory, Ratification Debates, Peace Party (American Civil War), Braxton Bragg (1817-1876), Daniel Harvey Hill (1821-1889), Battle of Bentonville, Bryan Grimes (1828-1880), Fort Hatteras, Fort Fisher, Fort Clark, Fort Macon, Daniel Russell (1845-1908), The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It, Union League, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Levi Coffin (1798 – 1877), Raleigh E. Colston (1825 - 1896) , Thomas Fentriss Toon (1840-1902), Robert Fredrick Hoke (1837-1912), Battle of Forks Road, Aaron McDuffie Moore (1863-1923), Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) , Fort Anderson (Confederate), Battle of Deep Gully and Fort Anderson (Federal), James T. Leach (1805-1883), Sarah Malinda Pritchard Blalock (1839-1903), Thomas Bragg (1810-1872), Curtis Hooks Brogden (1816-1901), John Motley Morehead (1796-1866), David Lowry Swain (1801-1868), Zebulon Baird Vance (1830-1894), Alamance County (1849), Gates County (1779), Clay County (1861), Lenoir County (1791), Union County (1842), Teague Band (Civil War), Fort Hamby Gang (Civil War), Shelton Laurel Massacre , Parker David Robbins (1834-1917), Henry Eppes (1831-1917), Washington County (1799), Hertford County (1759), Rutherford County (1770), Granville County (1746), Salisbury Prison (Civil War), Stoneman's Raid, James City, Fort York, Asa Biggs (1811 - 1878), Thomas Clingman (1812 - 1897), Matt W. Ransom (1826 - 1904), St. Augustine's College, Peace College
Related Commentary: Toward an Inclusive History of the Civil War: Society and the Home Front, Edward Bonekemper on the Cowardice of General McClellan
Related Lesson Plans: Discussion of the Lunsford Lane Narrative
Timeline: 1836-1865
Region: Statewide

Civil War Battle Summaries

Battle Summaries

Wilmington & North Carolina’s Cape Fear Coast Civil War History

Wilmington & North Carolina’s Cape Fear Coast Civil War History