Removing the Mask of Nationality: Unionism, Racism, And Federal Military Occupation in North Carolina, 1862-1865‪.‬

As DAWN CAST ITS SHIMMERING LIGHT OVER THE SLEEPY LITTLE PORT OF Beaufort, North Carolina, on the soggy morning of March 26, 1862, local residents awoke to find their world had changed overnight. They had drifted off to sleep the night before as residents of a quiet Confederate municipality but awakened to find themselves inhabitants of the newest Federal outpost in North America. An expedition under the command of General Ambrose E. Burnside had captured Roanoke Island in February and New Bern on March 14, before advancing on Beaufort and Fort Macon, which guarded Beaufort's harbor. During the wet, foggy night of March 25, two companies from the Fourth Rhode Island regiment shoved off from Morehead City, quietly rowed past Fort Macon, landed at Beaufort's wharf, and marched into this county seat of Carteret County on the southern tip of the Outer Banks, marking the beginning of a Union occupation that would last the rest of the war. (1) President Abraham Lincoln and many Federal authorities anticipated that the majority of local white citizens would be loyal, and they expected to utilize this sentiment to foster a harmonious reconstruction. Lincoln believed that a show of force and benevolence by the Union army would bring thousands back to the Union fold. Thus, the initial Union policy throughout the South was one of conciliation, and the early experience along North Carolina's coast was no different. Lincoln even appointed a native son, Edward Stanly, as military governor of the state in May 1862 to help reconstitute local self-government and reassure the local population of the national government's limited war aims of restoring the Union. Early results seemed positive; indeed, the people of Carteret appeared to be the grateful Unionists whom Lincoln envisioned. Residents, seeking to take advantage of new economic opportunities while simultaneously maintaining the social status quo, wedded themselves to the Union. Yet, just a few months into the honeymoon, many apparent Unionists rejected their occupiers, primarily over perceived arbitrary uses of Federal power and serious disagreements over racial policies. Contrary to Lincoln's optimism, the experience of Union occupation would ultimately drive local residents more firmly into the Confederate camp than they otherwise would have been. (2)