The Siege of Washington in 1863...

5fish

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Yes, I bet you did not know Washington was laid siege to in 1862 by the Confederate. Yes, the town of Washington, NC. was under siege in March of 1863. Here the inscription on the historical marker...


To protect Confederate supply lines and to gather much-need provisions in eastern North Carolina, Gen. Daniel H. Hill planned demonstrations against Union-occupied New Bern and Washington in March 1863. He acted under orders from Gen. James Longstreet, whom Gen. Robert E. Lee had appointed commander of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina. After Hill’s expedition to New Bern ended with no result, he marched to Washington and, on March 30, besieged the town and its Federal garrison. Union forces had held Washington since March 20, 1862, just five days after it captured New Bern.

The Confederates occupied Fort Hill, located five miles down the Pamlico River, and kept Washington from being reinforced with holding a small armada of Federal warships at bay. Action across the river at Rodman’s Quarter stayed lively as the town was bombarded and the Confederate cannons dueled with the gunboats Commodore Hull, Louisiana, Eagle, and Ceres. Gen. Francis B. Spinola and his 8,000 troops tried to take Fort Hill from the Confederate forces but was repulsed on April 9 at the Battle of Blount’s Creek.


Union reinforcements ended the siege on April 20, as Lee recalled Hill to Virginia. Supplies had been obtained, the Federals at Washington and New Bern had been kept occupied, and soon the Battle of Gettysburg would await both sides.


Siege: Foster, a West Point trained Army engineer, put his skills to good use improving the town's defenses as well as employing the use of three gunboats in the defense. By March 30, the town was ringed with fortifications, and Brig. Gen. Richard B. Garnett's brigade began the investment of Washington. Meanwhile, Hill established batteries as well as river obstructions along the Tar River to impede reinforcements. He also posted two brigades south of Washington to guard for any relief efforts coming overland from New Bern. The Confederates sent a reply to Foster demanding surrender. Foster replied saying "If the Confederates want Washington, come and get it." Despite this defiance, Foster lacked the strength to dislodge the besiegers, and Hill was under orders to avoid an assault at the risk of sustaining heavy casualties. Thus, the engagement devolved into one of artillery, and even so the Confederates limited their bombings to conserve their ammunition. In time both sides were running low on supplies, and conditions grew miserable in the rain and mud. Despite the lack of progress against Washington, Hill was accomplishing a vital objective in the form of foraging parties so long as the Federals were pinned down.

A Federal relief column under Brig. Gen. Henry Prince sailed up the Tar River. Once Prince saw the Rebel batteries, he simply turned the transports around. A second effort under Brig. Gen. Francis Barretto Spinola moved overland from New Bern. Spinola was defeated along Blount's Creek and returned to New Bern. Foster decided that he would escape Washington and personally lead the relief effort leaving his chief-of-staff, Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter in command at Washington. On April 13, the USS Escort braved the Confederate batteries and made its way into Washington. The Escort delivered supplies and reinforcements in the form of a Rhode Island regiment. It was aboard this ship on April 15 that Foster made his escape. The ship was badly damaged and the pilot mortally wounded, but Foster made it out.
 

rittmeister

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according to british history books the siege of 1812 was way more fun
 

5fish

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During the siege a x-slave saved some union soldiers by pushing their boat off a sandbar... He is referred to as Big Bob...


As a little African American girl, I grew up hearing stories about Big Bob, the slave martyr who gave his life for the U.S. Army and Captain Charles Lyons on a Union vessel off Rodman’s Point near Washington, N.C., March 31, 1863. It was during the Siege of Washington that Capt. Lyons’ flatboat got stuck on a sandbar while under enemy fire. Big Bob pushed the boat off the sandbar, declaring, “Somebody’s got to die to git us out of this, it might as well be me.” He was shot five times and killed. With the flatboat off the sandbar, Capt. Lyons and his men made it safely back to shore. As a slave, Big Bob never received recognition for this heroic act, but his story encourages me to do great things and stand up for the right thing even though it might cost me. There were other heroic deeds Big Bob and other contraband slaves did while they were Union Army in Washington and other eastern North Carolina locations, and they deserve to have their stories told. They were vital to the Civil war efforts here in Beaufort County and beyond.
 

5fish

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The siege of Washington is one of those moment the union commander armed the former slaves to defend the town...


A postwar history of the 44th Regiment Massachusetts Infantry credited Col. Francis L. Lee of that regiment with arming the African Americans at Washington, sometime after his unit arrived on March 16. A postwar history of the 27th Regiment Massachusetts Infantry implied that the men were armed on or about March 30, the first day of the siege. Department of North Carolina commander Maj. Gen. John G. Foster arrived at Washington early in the morning of the same day to take charge of the defense, so there is room for doubt as to whether Lee took the initiative or acted under Foster’s orders.

Although Foster made no mention of arming African Americans at Washington in his April 30 campaign report, he did so in a May 4 letter to U.S. secretary of war Edwin M. Stanton. However, he credited the initial idea to the African Americans themselves: “During the late attack on Washington, the negroes applied to me for arms, and to strengthen my lines I armed about 120, all that I had arms for.” The April 13, 1863 entry of a wartime diary by a member of the 44th Massachusetts indicated that 100 African Americans were among the town’s defenders by that date. This figure, and Foster’s slightly larger estimate of “about 120,” should be considered approximate.

It is known that at least two African American boatmen were killed during the siege while conveying Union troops down the Pamlico River on the night of March 30-31, 1863, as a Federal expedition by a company of the 1st Regiment N.C. Volunteers (Union) to Rodman’s Point was forced to withdraw under heavy fire. One of the boatmen was mortally wounded when his boat was stuck in the sand. In an effort to save the soldiers and his fellow boatmen, he got out of the boat and pushed it into the water, but was hit multiple times and died after subsequent unsuccessful surgery back in Washington.

The boatman’s story was reported in the Cleveland Morning Leader, quoting Assistant Surgeon Theodore W. Fisher of the 44th Regiment Massachusetts Infantry. Fisher did not witness the event as his regiment was not involved. He probably obtained his information from Surgeon Robert Ware of his regiment, who operated on the wounded man and likely had an opportunity to talk to the men who had brought him in. The story soon became the subject of a poem celebrating the slain man’s act of heroism. After the war, African American activist and writer William Wells Brown wrote a longer account of the incident. According to Brown, the man was an escaped slave known as “Big Bob,” who had recently arrived in Washington.

The other boatman killed in the Rodman’s Point incident fell into the river, according to an account in a New York newspaper. His body was subsequently recovered by the Confederates and left for the Federals when Rodman’s Point was evacuated on April 15 along with various damaged artillery pieces.
 
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