The Battle of Plymouth was an engagement during the American Civil War that was fought from April 17 through April 20, 1864, in the city of Plymouth and surrounding Washington County, North Carolina.
In a combined operation with the ironclad ram CSS Albemarle, Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. Robert F. Hoke, attacked the Federal garrison at Plymouth, North Carolina, on April 17. On April 19, the ram appeared in the river, sinking the USS Southfield, damaging the USS Miami, and driving off the other Union Navy ships supporting the Plymouth garrison. Confederate forces captured Fort Comfort, driving defenders into Fort Williams. On April 20, the garrison surrendered.
Plymouth citizens are believed to have taken refuge in the basement of the Latham House during the Battle of Plymouth.
As the possibility of surrender grew imminent, several federal soldiers, fearing harsh treatment at the hands of Confederate captors, mounted intensive efforts to escape. One took a canoe down river and was rescued by steamer a week after the battle, while others hid in surrounding swamps and lowlands before sneaking back to Union lines. Others changed their identities to those of deceased federal soldiers who bore no connection to North Carolina. Most of the captured enlisted men were sent to Andersonville Prison, where many later died.
1st North Carolina Artillery (Companies B, G and H)
Browning, Judkin Jay (July 2000). ""Little Souled Mercenaries"? The Buffaloes of Eastern North Carolina during the Civil War". The North Carolina Historical Review. 77 (3): 337–363. JSTOR 23522270.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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