This past weekend, I had the chance to attend the Emerging
Civil War conference in Spotsylvania, Virginia. The theme for the event was
"Great Attacks of the Civil War," and that got me to thinking: what
were the great attacks in the Civil War in North Carolina?
Now it would be easy to put the assault of Hardee's and
Stewart's men at Bentonville, or Ames' Division at Fort Fisher. But what came
to mind are two much smaller affairs, that had greater repercussions.
The first of my two "Great Attacks" takes place in
1861. Forts Clark and Hatteras were constructed either
side of Hatteras Inlet not long after North Carolina left the Union. They were
meant to keep the Federals out of the Pamlico Sound. On August 28, 1861,
Federal naval ships bombarded Fort Clark. Unable to return fire due to the
range, Confederate forces fled to Fort Hatteras. Fort Clark was captured, and
the Union naval vessels turned their attention toward Fort Hatteras. After
several hours of intense bombardment, the fort surrendered, and 700
Confederates became prisoners of war. The loss of these two installations
opened the Pamlico Sound to the Union navy and army. Roanoke Island fell in
February 1862, the battle of New Bern was fought in March 1862, and Fort Macon
fell on April 26, 1862. Later, Federal soldiers set out on raids against
Kinston, and battles were fought at Wyse's Fork (this is a short list), all
because these two small forts fell in August 1861. |
| George Kirk |
My second pick is on the other end of the state. In June 1864,
then Capt. George W. Kirk led a small band of men, about 120, mostly from the
2nd North Carolina Mounted Infantry (US), on a raid against Camp Vance just
east of Morganton in Burke County. The capture of the camp and the skirmishes
(maybe three or four), fought between Kirk and various home guard elements as
the Federals attempted to flee back to east Tennessee, are minor in the grand
pantheon of Civil War battles. However, Kirk's Raid showed many that with the
Confederate abandonment of east Tennessee, the back door to the heart of the
Confederacy was wide open. Federal raiding parties could move through the area,
and even into upstate South Carolina and the mountains of north Georgia. More
importantly, family began to write their loved ones in the army in earnest,
imploring them to come home and offer some level of protection against the murdering
parties stripping the countryside blind. Kirk's Raid kicked into high gear a
war-within-a war in western North Carolina, and caused further desertions among
the Tar Heel Confederate soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army
of Tennessee.
So there you have it: the loss of Forts Clark and Hatteras
and Kirk's Raid, my two "Great attacks" in North Carolina in terms of
effectiveness. What would your great attacks be?
