Coinjock, NC. an its moments...

[5fish]

HEY! Hey! My mom's hometown of Coinjock, NC. had a big moment during the Civil War on Sept. 8, 1864.

September 8 — The only capture of a Unites States Congressman during the Civil War — at Coinjock in Currituck County. George Washington Julian was taken prisoner when Capt. J. N. Maffitt ordered pilot J. B. Hopkins to take a detail of twenty Confederate sailors to the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal and capture the mail boat Fawn. Julian was subsequently released in Elizabeth City.

They capture the mail boat Fawn at the Currituck Bridge which is in Coinjock. Below is a link to a section in a book which details the event. It's like a paragraph long...



Coinjock, NC. had a moment in May of 1863 as well led to the capture of two ships...

Yea!! My mom's hometown had a Civil War moment! Yea!!

Yea! Coinjock!!

 

[Jim Klag]

Congressman Alfred Ely was captured at 1st Manassas three years earlier. Just sayin'.

 

[O' Be Joyful]

Congressman Alfred Ely was captured at 1st Manassas three years earlier. Just sayin'.

Maybe he was wearing Chuck Taylors and jogged back down there to git' his...butt caught again.

I saw it on the internet...

 

[5fish]

Congressman Alfred Ely was captured at 1st Manassas three years earlier. Just sayin'.

I looked it up and he was held in Libby prison for six months, until exchanged...

 

[5fish]

I found this.... Currituck but Coinjock mom's home town...

Full Text

On May 16, 1863, thirty Confederate partisans from Pasquotank County jumped from the nearby Coinjock Bridge onto the side-wheel steamer Arrow and captured the crew, then steered the vessel alongside the steamer Emily as if nothing had happened. The partisans took both ships, flying the Stars and Stripes up Albemarle Sound, Chowan River, and Blackwater River to Franklin, Va. En route, they picked up five African Americans who hailed them not knowing the crews were Confed-erates. The exploit made headlines in the North Carolina newspapers. ALBEMARLE AND CHESAPEAKE CANAL ★ ★ ★ Military Supply Route The Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal opened in 1859, just before the Civil War began. It consisted of two “cuts” or locks: the first, in Virginia, linked the Elizabeth and North Landing Rivers south of Norfolk; the second, in North Carolina, joined Currituck Sound with the North River. Vessels could sail to and from Norfolk and Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. Ships carried supplies via the canal to build Confederate Forts Hatteras and Clark on the Outer Banks. Between August 1861 and January 1862 more than 200 military vessels passed through the canal. Commodore W.F. Lynch wrote to Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory, “[W]ithout the use of the canal, … supplies from, and imperatively req-uisite repairs at[,] Gosport navy-yard [Norfolk] could not have been received or effected.” southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina largely in Federal hands, the canal reopened to patrol and supply duties until the end of the war. After the Battle of Elizabeth City and the destruction of the Confederate Mosquito Fleet in February 1862, the Confederates scuttled ships to block the North Carolina cut. The Federals had the same idea to stall Confederate traffic and sent five vessels to the North River “with prize schooners in tow to obstruct the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal,” only to find that their adver-saries had already begun the task. After the Union occupation of Norfolk, the removal of the obstructions became a Federal priority. With U.S. Congressman George W. Julian of Indiana, a Republican member of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, took the mail boat Fawn to Roanoke Island to find out whether sut-lers there were price-gouging the soldiers to whom they sold goods. On February 9, 1864, on the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, Confederates attacked the ship, killed or wounded 7 people, captured 29 passengers including Julian, and burned the Fawn. Julian was soon released at Elizabeth City and continued to Roanoke Island. George W. Julian Courtesy Library of Congress Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, ca. 1858

 

[5fish]

I found another moment for Coinjock and Currituck county in the civil war... the famed union transport Maple Leaf and the great prisoner escape... well they escaped through Currituck county and some through a place called Coinjock...

Error - North Carolina Digital Collections

digital.ncdcr.gov

snip...

Currituck County played a vital role in a prisoner-of- war escape in 1863. At 1:30 P.M. on June 10, the troop-transport steamer Maple Leaf sailed from Fort Monroe, Va., for Fort Delaware, carrying 97 captured Confederate officers bound for the pris-oner- of-war camp at Johnson’s Island in Ohio. Two hours later, the prisoners overpowered the twelve-man guard and took over the ship, then escaped in small boats south of Cape Henry. About thirty officers, most of them wounded, remained aboard and returned to Fort Monroe. The seventy escapees went ashore on the Currituck Banks in North Carolina, trekked south down the beach to a salt works, were ferried by Edmond McHorney and others across Currituck Sound, and camped south of the county courthouse, which Federal troops occupied. The party split into smaller groups, and B.F. McHorney led them across Indian Ridge to the Great Dismal Swamp. When Maple Leaf returned to Fort Monroe and sounded the alarm four hours after the escape, Federal cavalrymen soon rode in pursuit while Federal gunboats prowled Currituck Sound, searching for the fugitives. Confederate local defense Capt.Willis B. Sanderlin, Co. B, 68th North Carolina Infantry (which the Federals branded a “guerrilla” force), helped conceal the former pris-oners. Area citizens also fed and cared for the men, MAPLE LEAF ★ ★ ★ A Great Escape Artifacts salvaged from Maple Leaf Maple Leaf – Courtesy mapleleafshipwreck.com Courtesy mapleleafshipwreck.com who eventually found their way to Richmond. Maple Leaf continued to function as a troop transport until it struck a Confederate “torpedo” (floating mine) near Jacksonville, Florida, on April 1, 1864. The ship sank in the St. John’s River with its cargo, which included the baggage of three Union regiments. In the 1980s, archaeologists located the wreck—one of the great treasure troves of the Civil War—and salvaged thousands of artifacts. The nearby community of Maple is named for the ship. Edmond McHorney, seated left, 1898 Courtesy Travis Morris P AS Q U O TA N K R I VER CUR R I T U C K S OUN D AT L A NT IC O CE A N Rendezvous location Currituck Courthouse Second boat landing Campsite Landing site near False Cape, Va. Salt works at Currituck Beach Edmond McHorney boat landing Great Dismal Swamp Coinjock You Are Here Confederate escape routes from the Union steamship Maple Leaf. Courtesy Harry P. Lee, Currituck Co.

 

[5fish]

Elizabeth City... link works...

Civil War raid of black troops into North Carolina still stirs emotions

A one-armed Union general marched into eastern North Carolina in 1863 with his African Brigade, burning homes and freeing thousands of slaves. The campaign stopped Confederate guerrilla resistance …

www.pilotonline.com

A one-armed Union general marched into eastern North Carolina in 1863 with his African Brigade, burning homes and freeing thousands of slaves. This summer, the state plans to place a marker on Water Street in Elizabeth City, commemorating that first major campaign in North Carolina by U.S. Colored Troops.

 

[5fish]

This Wild guy was a character...

General Wild’s Raid | Our State

General Wild raises an army of former slaves who take aim at Southern plantations.

www.ourstate.com

The Great Dismal expedition
Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, who succeeds the more timid Foster as commander of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, offers a straightforward rationale for the raid: “Our navigation on the Dismal Swamp canal had been interrupted, and the Union inhabitants plundered by the guerrillas.”

General Wild’s force of nearly 2,000 includes troopers from the 1st and 2nd N.C. Colored Volunteer regiments, the 1st U.S. Colored Troops, and the 55th Massachusetts. Again, many of the black troopers find themselves returning to their home districts as armed liberators — in Currituck, Camden, Pasquotank, Perquimans, and Gates counties. It is the first time in history that U.S. Colored Troops conduct a significant combat operation on their own, not as part of a larger enterprise.

The column marches along the canal path deep into the heart of the swamp. One man records, “We were in the dreariest and wildest part of the Dismal Swamp, the darkness was dense, the air damp, and the ghostly silence was broken only by the hooting of owls and crying of wild cats. For two hours we rode through the Stygian darkness of the forest, when we arrived at South Mills.”

Two shallow-draft steamers have been outfitted to shadow the raiders, bringing up fresh provisions and ammunition, but they somehow get lost in the vastness of the swamp, and General Wild’s troopers must now live off the land. “Here we left the canal and descended into another swamp of Hades,” the same trooper writes. “The narrow crooked road was flooded with water and crossed with innumerable little rickety bridges, over which our horses made their way with great caution and reluctance.”

From South Mills, they strike overland and cross the Pasquotank River, and when they arrive at Elizabeth City, they inspire widespread panic: The citizens there have never seen armed black troops before. Whatever action the black troopers take, it is magnified, embellished, and distorted by wild rumor and the panicky exaggeration born of a fear going back many generations.

From their base at Elizabeth City, the troopers sortie as far as the Chowan River in search of recruits and guerrillas. “Finding ordinary measures of little avail,” General Wild reports, “I burned their houses and barns, ate up their live stock, and took hostages from their family.” He tallies four guerrilla camps destroyed, guns and ammunition captured, and two dozen homesteads burned, along with two distilleries. By his reckoning, his forces liberate some 2,500 black slaves from their bondage — many of whom will now be recruited into the ranks of the U.S. Army.

All but one of the 20 prisoners they capture are released, retained as hostages, or sent to Norfolk for trial and imprisonment. The lone exception is Daniel Bright, a Pasquotank County man. The general tries him before a drumhead court-martial, and he is found guilty of guerrilla activity. Bright is hanged, a placard around his neck proclaiming, “This guerrilla hanged by order of Brigadier General Wild.”

Confederate Col. Joel R. Griffin, posted in Virginia, is outraged by Wild’s raid and the summary execution of an irregular soldier — who, though acting on his own, was in fact a private in a Georgia cavalry regiment. Griffin writes, with barely tempered anger, “Probably no expedition, during the progress of the war, has been attended with more bitter disregard for the long established usages of civilization of the dictates of humanity than your late raid into the country bordering the Albemarle. Your stay, though short, was marked by crimes and enormities. You burned houses over the heads of defenceless women and children, carried off private property of every description, arrested non-combatants, and carried off ladies in irons, whom you confined with negro men.”

At last, Griffin arrives at the crux of the matter, the hanging of Daniel Bright, which he recounts in detail. “Therefore,” he declares, ignoring the savage irony of his own response, “I have obtained an order from the General commanding, for the execution of Samuel Jones, a private of Company B. Fifth Ohio, whom I hang in retaliation.”

 

[5fish]

Before general Wild another General Reno took on the Dismal swamp... He went there to blow up the locks of the Dismal canal... forget the expedition it Reno vs Hawkins...

America's Civil War: Expedition to Destroy Dismal Swamp Canal

Eager to improve the regiment's somewhat tarnished reputation, Colonel Rush Hawkins' 9th New York Zouaves set off through North Carolina's Dismal Swamp to attack the canal at South Mills. What followed was not exactly what Hawkins had in mind.By Joseph F. von Deck

www.historynet.com

Where the plan really originated cannot be determined. The threat of gunboats would certainly have given Rowan cause for thought — although Federal control of Roanoke Island and Croatan Sound (which separates the island from the mainland) might have negated the threat unless ironclads were involved — and CSS Virginia (formerly Merrimack) was lurking near Hampton Roads, Va. Later, expedition commander Brig. Gen. Jesse L. Reno would state the assault was merely intended as a demonstration toward Norfolk, Va., but that was after the best-laid plans had gone astray. The truth lay buried in Dismal Swamp.

Here are recap of the Battle Reno fought in the Dismal swamp...

South Mills, Battle of

www.ncpedia.org

Here another with details...

Battle of South Mills - Camden County, NC
http://www.camdencountync.gov › phocadownload

 

[5fish]

Currituck Sound...

 

[5fish]

Here are the Confederate units raised in Currituck County, NC...

https://www.carolana.com/NC/Civil_War/civil_war_military_units_currituck_county_nc.html

 

[5fish]

I found this about Currituck...