A few years ago, I spent a week wandering around the Outer Banks in search of History....any United States history that I could locate. Fortunately for me, the Outer Banks is full of it. One of the places that I had the opportunity to visit was Roanoke Island.
Roanoke Island is famous for the Lost Colony. Sir Francis Drake had set up a colony on this island and then had to go back to England. When he returned, the colony was gone....vanished....and the only thing left were the letters "CRO" carved into a tree. To this day, no one knows for sure what happened to this colony. But this island is famous for something else. This island had a Freedman's Colony on it. This is what the memorial to the Freedman's Colony says:
Front of Memorial
First Light of Freedom
Former slaves give thanks by the creek’s edgeat the site of the island - “If you can cross thecreek to Roanoke Island, you will find ‘safe haven’.”
Back of Memorial
1862-1867. A year after the Civil War began, Roanoke Island fell to Union Forces. Word spread throughout North Carolina that slaves could find "safe haven" on the Island. By the end of 1862, over a thousand runaway slaves, freed men, women and children found sanctuary here. This colony, a precursor to the Freedmen's Bureau, was to serve as a model for other colonies throughout the South. Once again this small island, site of the first English attempt at permanent settlement in the New World, became a land of historic beginnings.
The Freedmen's Colony encompassed unoccupied, unimproved lands from Manteo to the north and west shores, including some of the land today known as Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. A sawmill, hospital, a school for black female teachers, and homes were established. Able-bodied men were offered rations and and employment to build a new fort. They also enlisted to form the First and Second North Carolina Regiments. The colony could not remain self-supporting without men and became a refuge for three thousand women, children, aged and informed.
Upon the war's end, the federal government discontinued rations and supplies to colonists and returned land to original owners. Reminiscent of early English efforts, the Roanoke Island Freedmen's colony was abandoned in 1867. Many freed people remained and their descendants would become respected local residents. Others settled in communities Throughout the region and would become an integral part of eastern North Carolina culture.
Its funny how we don't think about the Southern states having anything to do with the history of freeing the slaves....yet North Carolina played a HUGE part. The Underground Railroad was a major part of the freeing of the slaves and to think that this particular piece of property, although not technically a part of the Underground Railroad, was still a vital force in this process. The United States government did a good thing when they started this colony.
Showing posts with label The Outer Banks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Outer Banks. Show all posts
Friday, September 4, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Fort Ocracoke
The Confederate fort near Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina interests me. It was located on a small island called "Beacon Island" and was the last of four forts to be constructed on this island. From what I have read, they were probably all built on top of each other.
The Confederates built a bunch of forts along the North Carolina coast to prevent the Union navy from being able to land on the North Carolina coast. This fort was also known as Fort Morgan. At the peak, it appears that there were 500 COnfederates in the area. So whether they were all at Fort Ocracoke or on Ocracoke Island remains to be seen.
Evidently, some of the men were sent up to Hatteras Island when that fort was being shelled to help protect it and they left a skeletal crew at Fort Ocracoke. Supplies hadn't been received and they had no help, so when word got to them that Fort Hatteras fell, the men who were at Fort Ocracoke abandoned the fort but not before doing some damage to it.
Here is a description of the fort by Lt. Maxwell of the Union steamer Pawnee:
It is octagonal in shape, contains four shell rooms, about twenty five feet square, and in the center a large Bomb-proof, one hundred feet square, with the magazine within it. Directly above the magazine, on each side, were four large tanks containing water. The fort had been constructed with great care, of sand in barrels covered with earth and turf. The inner framing of the bomb-proof was built of heavy pine timbers. There were platforms for twenty guns, which had been partly destroyed by fire. The gun carriages had been all burned. There were eighteen guns in the fort-- namely, four eight inch navy sell gunes, and fourteen long thirty-two pounders.
When you visit Ocracoke Island, in the parking lot at the Visitors Center in the Ocracoke Village, there is a monument dedicated to the Fort. Here is what the monument says:
The remants of Fort Ocracoke are submerged in Ocracoke Inlet, 2 miles to the west-southwest, towards Portsmouth Island. The last of possibly four forts on Beacon Island, the mostly earthen Fort Ocracoke was constructed by mainland Confederate volunteers. Beginning on May 20, 1861, the day North Carolina seceeded from the Union and joined the Confederacy.
After Union victories on Hatteras Island in August, 1861, the Confederates partly destroyed the fort and abandoned it without a fight. Mainland Union forces completed the destruction in September, 1861. Beacon Island was consumed by the waters of Ocracoke Inlet in the first half of the 20th century. The forts remain where discovered and identified by members of Surface Interval Diving Co. in August, 1998, acting on a tip by Ocracoke charter boat captain, Donald Austin.
This is definitely a site worth exploring, although today, the island itself is under water, you can still stand and look out into the water and wonder "Just what DID that fort look like from this spot?"
The Confederates built a bunch of forts along the North Carolina coast to prevent the Union navy from being able to land on the North Carolina coast. This fort was also known as Fort Morgan. At the peak, it appears that there were 500 COnfederates in the area. So whether they were all at Fort Ocracoke or on Ocracoke Island remains to be seen.
Evidently, some of the men were sent up to Hatteras Island when that fort was being shelled to help protect it and they left a skeletal crew at Fort Ocracoke. Supplies hadn't been received and they had no help, so when word got to them that Fort Hatteras fell, the men who were at Fort Ocracoke abandoned the fort but not before doing some damage to it.
Here is a description of the fort by Lt. Maxwell of the Union steamer Pawnee:
It is octagonal in shape, contains four shell rooms, about twenty five feet square, and in the center a large Bomb-proof, one hundred feet square, with the magazine within it. Directly above the magazine, on each side, were four large tanks containing water. The fort had been constructed with great care, of sand in barrels covered with earth and turf. The inner framing of the bomb-proof was built of heavy pine timbers. There were platforms for twenty guns, which had been partly destroyed by fire. The gun carriages had been all burned. There were eighteen guns in the fort-- namely, four eight inch navy sell gunes, and fourteen long thirty-two pounders.
When you visit Ocracoke Island, in the parking lot at the Visitors Center in the Ocracoke Village, there is a monument dedicated to the Fort. Here is what the monument says:
The remants of Fort Ocracoke are submerged in Ocracoke Inlet, 2 miles to the west-southwest, towards Portsmouth Island. The last of possibly four forts on Beacon Island, the mostly earthen Fort Ocracoke was constructed by mainland Confederate volunteers. Beginning on May 20, 1861, the day North Carolina seceeded from the Union and joined the Confederacy.
After Union victories on Hatteras Island in August, 1861, the Confederates partly destroyed the fort and abandoned it without a fight. Mainland Union forces completed the destruction in September, 1861. Beacon Island was consumed by the waters of Ocracoke Inlet in the first half of the 20th century. The forts remain where discovered and identified by members of Surface Interval Diving Co. in August, 1998, acting on a tip by Ocracoke charter boat captain, Donald Austin.
This is definitely a site worth exploring, although today, the island itself is under water, you can still stand and look out into the water and wonder "Just what DID that fort look like from this spot?"
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Cape Hatteras
I thought that today I would write a little bit about some of my trips down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. When I had gone down there (and its been a few years now) I didn't know much more about the Civil War than the basics so to say that I was a little surprised to find out that there was a ton of Civil War history down there is an understatement.
I'm not so much a fan of the northern end of the Outer Banks....places like Nagshead, Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk. It's too touristy for me. So I sort of "zone out" until we hit Cape Hatteras National Seashore. This is MY country. When you have to drive 20 miles just to get to the next "town" and that "town" is lucky to have a grocery store I am in heaven. That's when I started noticing "the signs".
The Signs are fairly small and they usually point down some off the beaten path road and they will usually say something like "Civil War Marker" with an arrow. Cool! Now, if it had been one or two signs, I probably could have convinced the family to stop at all those signs....but there were more....lots more.
Now what could possibly have happened on that thin strip of land that juts out into the ocean. The strip of land ranges anywhere from a mile to a couple hundred yards wide. But it goes on forever.....100+ miles. The sound, which is between the Island and the Mainland isn't very deep. I've seen windsurfers way out in the sound, fall off their boards and when they stood up, the water was up to their waists. So, they couldn't have had any kind of naval battle. Hmmm. Just what took place down there???? Well, I've done research. I LOVE research!
I found this on the internet and found it very interesting: The Civil War saw Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in the center of conflict. The Confederate army wanted to destroy the lighthouse to prevent the Union ships benefiting from it, and naturally the Union forces wanted to protect the lighthouse. After several battles in 1861, defeated Confederate troops retreated with the lighthouse's Fresnel lens. In 1862, the tower was relit with a second-order Fresnel lens, and then upgraded the following year with a first-order lens. The tower was severely damaged in the war, and after peace was restored to the country, the Lighthouse Board determined it would be less costly to build a new lighthouse, 600 feet to the north, rather than repair and refit the existing one. The original Cape Hatteras Light was destroyed in a blast of dynamite, and the Fresnel lens it had most recently housed was shipped to California for use in the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=356
There is a book out called "Touring the Carolina's Civil War Sites" by Clint Johnson that looks to be a good read. I quickly went over it on Google books and it looks interesting. Another book that I have to add to my list (and is that list ever long!!!).
One day I am going to return to The Outer Banks and when I do, I am going to take a picture of every single one of those markers. I am determined to find out exactly what took place, where it took place, who was involved and how it ended. I know that one of the inlets was a good place for ships to use in order to reach the mainland....so that is why the Confederates didn't want the Union forces to be able to approach....but what else happened??? Hmmmm....one day I will know!
I'm not so much a fan of the northern end of the Outer Banks....places like Nagshead, Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk. It's too touristy for me. So I sort of "zone out" until we hit Cape Hatteras National Seashore. This is MY country. When you have to drive 20 miles just to get to the next "town" and that "town" is lucky to have a grocery store I am in heaven. That's when I started noticing "the signs".
The Signs are fairly small and they usually point down some off the beaten path road and they will usually say something like "Civil War Marker" with an arrow. Cool! Now, if it had been one or two signs, I probably could have convinced the family to stop at all those signs....but there were more....lots more.
Now what could possibly have happened on that thin strip of land that juts out into the ocean. The strip of land ranges anywhere from a mile to a couple hundred yards wide. But it goes on forever.....100+ miles. The sound, which is between the Island and the Mainland isn't very deep. I've seen windsurfers way out in the sound, fall off their boards and when they stood up, the water was up to their waists. So, they couldn't have had any kind of naval battle. Hmmm. Just what took place down there???? Well, I've done research. I LOVE research!
I found this on the internet and found it very interesting: The Civil War saw Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in the center of conflict. The Confederate army wanted to destroy the lighthouse to prevent the Union ships benefiting from it, and naturally the Union forces wanted to protect the lighthouse. After several battles in 1861, defeated Confederate troops retreated with the lighthouse's Fresnel lens. In 1862, the tower was relit with a second-order Fresnel lens, and then upgraded the following year with a first-order lens. The tower was severely damaged in the war, and after peace was restored to the country, the Lighthouse Board determined it would be less costly to build a new lighthouse, 600 feet to the north, rather than repair and refit the existing one. The original Cape Hatteras Light was destroyed in a blast of dynamite, and the Fresnel lens it had most recently housed was shipped to California for use in the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=356
There is a book out called "Touring the Carolina's Civil War Sites" by Clint Johnson that looks to be a good read. I quickly went over it on Google books and it looks interesting. Another book that I have to add to my list (and is that list ever long!!!).
One day I am going to return to The Outer Banks and when I do, I am going to take a picture of every single one of those markers. I am determined to find out exactly what took place, where it took place, who was involved and how it ended. I know that one of the inlets was a good place for ships to use in order to reach the mainland....so that is why the Confederates didn't want the Union forces to be able to approach....but what else happened??? Hmmmm....one day I will know!
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