Fall of New Bern was a Civil War milestone in 1862

Near the entrance to the Taberna subdivision off U.S. Route 70 south of New Bern, N.C., is the New Bern Battlefield Park, an important stop on the North Carolina Civil War Trails. 

About 30 acres of the original battlefield have been preserved, thanks to the efforts of the New Bern Historical Society. Around the visitors center and along the walking trails are 36 interpretive panels that recount the battle, and several fighting positions are still visible.

 

Early in the Civil War, Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside – the fellow with the ultra-bushy sideburns – was given the task of “disrupting the Confederacy’s supply chain” – the ports and critical railroad lines. 

“New Bern, N.C., figured prominently in these plans,” historians said, as “it was located along the new railroad that had been built to connect Fort Macon and the port of Beaufort (in Carteret County) with the rail hub at Goldsboro.” 

On March 13, 1862, 11,000 federal troops led by Burnside and supported by 13 gunboats under Commodore Stephen Rowan came up the Neuse River and landed at Slocum Creek (near today’s Havelock). Soldiers began advancing 16 miles northwest toward New Bern. Rowan’s gunboats advanced upriver shelling the shoreline just ahead of the federal advance. 

Awaiting the Union forces were 4,000 Confederate troops commanded by Gen. Lawrence O’Bryan Branch, positioned along a line running from Fort Thompson on the Neuse River to Wood’s Brickyard adjacent to the railroad tracks and westward from the railroad along the Bullen Branch of Brice’s Creek. Fort Thompson was about five miles below New Bern proper. 

Lawrence Branch, a native of Enfield in Halifax County, N.C., was well-educated. He attended the University of North Carolina and graduated first in his class from Princeton (N.J.) College in 1838 (at age 17). He went on to study law in Nashville, Tenn., where he also owned and edited a newspaper. 

In 1852, Branch relocated to Raleigh, where he continued to practice law and became president of the Raleigh & Gaston Railroad Co. He was elected to serve three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1855-61. Branch joined the Confederate army in May 1861 as a 40-year-old private. He was elevated to brigadier general in January 1862. 

The fighting at New Bern began early in the morning on March 14, 1862.

 

Initially, the Confederate troops, protected by the heavy guns of Fort Thompson, were able to hold their position, but the Union soldiers broke through defenses along the railroad track, as Confederate volunteer militia men immediately retreated after being exposed to Union gunfire. 

It was only a matter of a few hours until Branch’s men abandoned the fort in retreat. 

Historian Paul Branch of the North Carolina State Park Service said casualties were high, as the Union army reported “90 men killed, 380 wounded and 1 missing.” Confederates had “64 men killed, 101 wounded and 413 captured or missing.” 

The Confederate soldiers retreated to Kinston, about 35 miles inland, and many of the residents of New Bern evacuated. 

By nightfall, New Bern was occupied by Burnside’s army. The victory at New Bern provided the Union army with an excellent base strategically located on the mainland of North Carolina. 

New Bern would remain under Union control for the rest of the war, although Confederate forces made three unsuccessful attempts to retake the town.

 

James City emerged as ‘Mecca for freedom’ 

Union troops who occupied New Bern in Craven County during the Civil War in 1862 didn’t anticipate that this region of North Carolina would become a “Mecca for freedom,” attracting slaves and their family members who sought refuge. 

With the emancipation of all enslaved people on Jan. 1, 1863, the population swelled even larger. To accommodate all of these African-Americans, Union army officials chose to construct the “Trent River Settlement” in 1863.

 

Initially, about 800 homes for black families were built on confiscated lands south of the Trent River, formerly the property of Col. Peter Gustavous Evans, a Confederate officer. (Col. Evans was married to Ann Eliza “Lizzie” Morehead Evans, daughter of former North Carolina Gov. John Motley Morehead and Ann Eliza Lindsay Morehead.) 

A Union army chaplain, the Rev. Horace James, was brought in to organize and manage the Trent River Settlement. 

North Carolina historian Joe A. Mobley, writing for NCPedia, said Rev. James was a native of Medford, Mass., and an 1840 graduate of Yale University in New Haven, Conn. He was serving as pastor of Old South Congregational Church in Worcester, Mass., when the Civil War broke out. He enlisted as a Union army chaplain in 1861 and was assigned to Fort Monroe at Hampton, Va. 

Rev. James was placed in charge of supervising the care and employment of the many contrabands (escaped slaves) who fled to Union lines, according to Mobley. 

In February 1862, Rev. James participated in the expedition led by Gen. Ambrose Burnside that captured Roanoke Island, N.C. Burnside wisely appointed Rev. James as officer-in-charge of the contrabands who sought federal protection on the island. 

In this capacity, Rev. James created a settlement at Roanoke Island that became known as a “Freedmen’s Colony.” Not only were the newly freed citizens provided jobs, they built their own churches and schools, Mobley said. 

“The encampment at Roanoke Island was a model for the Trent River Settlement,” Mobley added. 

The settlement came to be known in 1865 as James City, named in honor of Rev. James.

 

He also reached out to “set up smaller camps in eastern North Carolina, including Beaufort and Morehead City.” 

Beaufort historian Mamré Marsh Wilson said “Union Town” was the name of the refugee camp for freedmen that was established on the north side of Beaufort in 1863, “above Cedar Street.” 

James received support from the American Missionary Association (AMA), a nondenominational abolitionist society formed in 1846 in Albany, N.Y. The main purpose of the organization was education of African-Americans, promotion of racial equality and the spread of Christian values. 

Dr. Maxine D. Jones, a history professor at Florida State University, said the freedmen’s schoolhouse in Beaufort was named Whipple School, in honor of Professor George Whipple of Oberlin (Ohio) College, who helped form the AMA. 

Wilson said that in 1867, the AMA helped build Washburn Male and Female Seminary and St. Stephen’s Congregational Church on Cedar Street in Beaufort. 

Two individuals who reportedly were connected to Washburn Seminary as adults were former slaves Pierre and Annie Bell Henry. They were married in 1843 and raised five children. The couple’s graves are located in the Old Burying Ground in Beaufort. 

Their epitaphs are from the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”