Roanoke Island

Fought on February 7 and 8, 1862, the Battle of Roanoke Island marked the first stage of the campaign that would later be known as the Burnside Expedition. This amphibious clash took place in the North Carolina Sounds, not far south of the border with Virginia. On the Union side, the assault relied on several components: a flotilla of gunboats belonging to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and led by Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough, another cluster of gunboats operating under Army authority, and an infantry division under Brig. Gen. Ambrose Burnside.

Confederate resistance came from Capt. William F. Lynch's small naval force, known as the Mosquito Fleet, alongside roughly 2,000 soldiers whose local command belonged to Brig. Gen. Henry A. Wise. Bolstering these defenders were four forts positioned to guard the water routes into Roanoke Island, plus two additional batteries stationed nearby. Because Wise happened to be hospitalized when the fighting broke out, actual command passed to his subordinate, Col. Henry M. Shaw.

The initial day of combat saw an artillery exchange unfold between the Union gunboats and the shoreline forts, with the Mosquito Fleet joining in from time to time. As evening approached, Burnside's troops landed without meeting resistance, bringing with them six howitzers operated by naval crews. Darkness made further fighting impractical, so the Union forces simply set up camp until morning.

When February 8 arrived, Union infantry pushed forward but found their advance blocked by a Confederate artillery position and supporting foot soldiers stationed at the island's center. The Confederates had assumed their flanks were secure, protected by swampland they believed no army could cross, yet Union forces managed to outflank them from both sides. This forced the Confederate line to retreat toward the shelter of the forts, which subsequently fell when attacked from behind. Recognizing that his men had no route of escape, Col. Shaw chose surrender rather than allow further needless loss of life.

Background

Water defines the geography of northeastern North Carolina. Vast, shallow expanses of brackish and salty water stretch between the mainland and the Outer Banks, forming what people call the sounds. Though physically one connected body sharing a single water level, this expanse is commonly broken down into several named regions. Pamlico Sound, sitting just behind Hatteras Island, ranks as the largest. North of it lies Albemarle Sound, second in size, reaching nearly to Virginia's southern edge. Roanoke Island pinches the already narrow connection between these two sounds even further. Croatan Sound refers to the stretch of water running between Roanoke Island and the mainland. Roughly ten miles separate the ends of both the island and this sound. At its broadest, the sound spans a bit over four miles, while the island's width measures about half that figure. Roanoke Sound lies along the island's eastern edge, a narrower, shallower, and less significant waterway by comparison.

Numerous North Carolina towns grew up along these sounds, including New Bern (commonly spelled "New Berne" during that era), Beaufort, Edenton, and Elizabeth City. Additional settlements, though not directly bordering the sounds, could still be reached via the rivers flowing into them. This watershed encompassed nearly a third of the state's total land. For most of the Civil War's opening year, Confederate forces held the sounds firmly, keeping coastal trade flowing freely across the state's eastern reaches. Two waterways, the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal along with the Dismal Swamp Canal, tied the sounds to Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk's blockade remained incomplete as long as goods could slip in through this rear entrance. Even after Union troops seized the Hatteras Inlet forts on the Outer Banks in August 1861, these communication lines stayed largely intact, since the shallow inlets kept the Union Navy's deep-draft ships out of the sounds entirely.

Whoever held Roanoke Island effectively controlled the sounds. For Union forces, possessing it meant securing a stronghold vulnerable only to an amphibious assault, something Confederate resources could not achieve. Naval dominance there would leave every mainland shore point equally exposed to Union attack. Confederate defenders would then face a losing choice: abandon certain positions without resistance, or stretch their limited forces so thin that none could hold effectively.

Prelude

The effort to hold Roanoke Island began almost by chance. On August 27, 1861, when Federal ships arrived off Hatteras Inlet, the 3rd Georgia Infantry Regiment was rushed there from Norfolk to bolster the forts, only to find the forts had already fallen before the regiment could arrive. As a result, the troops were redirected to Roanoke Island, where they spent the following three months conducting occasional, half-hearted attempts to push Union soldiers off Hatteras Island.

Not much was accomplished toward fortifying the island until early October, when Brig. Gen. Hill took charge of coastal defense for the North Carolina sounds region. Under his direction, soldiers began building earthworks across the middle of the island, but Hill left for duty in Virginia before the work was finished. Soon afterward, his command area was divided into two districts. Brig. Gen. Lawrence O'B. Branch took over the southern portion, while Henry A. Wise assumed control of the northern section, which encompassed Albemarle Sound and Roanoke Island but excluded Pamlico Sound and its towns. Notably, Branch answered to Brig. Gen. Richard C. Gatlin, head of the Department of North Carolina, whereas Wise fell under Maj. Gen. Benjamin Huger, responsible for Norfolk's defenses.

Wise had once led what was called the Wise Legion, though those troops did not follow him to his new post. That unit was dissolved, though he managed to keep two of his former regiments, the 46th and 59th Virginia. Rounding out his force were three North Carolina regiments (the 2nd, 8th, and 31st) along with three companies from the 17th North Carolina. These North Carolina soldiers lacked proper equipment and adequate clothing, with many carrying nothing sturdier than personal shotguns. In total, roughly 1,400 infantrymen made up the command, though harsh living conditions kept as much as a quarter of them on the sick list at any given time, reducing the number fit for duty.

Like Hill before him, Wise pleaded with authorities in Richmond for artillery, but what arrived fell well short of what was needed. The available guns were spread across several makeshift forts. Fort Huger, at Weir's Point on the island's northwestern tip, held twelve guns facing Croatan Sound. About a mile southeast stood Fort Blanchard with four guns, and roughly a quarter of the way down the island sat Fort Bartow at Pork Point, mounting nine guns. On the opposite shore, at Redstone Point across from Fort Huger, two aging canal barges had been run aground and shielded with sandbags and cotton bales to form Fort Forrest, carrying seven guns. These positions accounted for every gun aimed at the sound, leaving the island's southern half, closest to Pamlico Sound and the direction from which the enemy would come, entirely without protection. Five additional guns pointed elsewhere: two guarded the eastern shore against a possible crossing from Roanoke Sound, and three more sat in an earthwork near the island's center.

Wise also managed one further defensive measure. Using pile drivers he had located, he blocked the channel between Forts Huger and Forrest with a double line of piles, reinforced by sunken hulks, though this barrier remained unfinished when the assault finally came.

The Confederate Navy contributed as well, fielding seven gunboats carrying just eight guns total, known as the Mosquito Fleet under Flag Officer William F. Lynch. Wise, however, considered this fleet more harmful than helpful, since it drained both guns and crews away from the island's forts. His frustration surfaced after the fighting ended, when he remarked that Lynch, though energetic and dedicated, placed excessive importance on his gunboats, which disrupted the movement of piles, lumber, forage, and supplies of every kind, as well as troops, by commandeering steam tugs and turning them into nearly useless warships. Regardless of Wise's misgivings, the Mosquito Fleet remained part of the defensive picture that Union forces would ultimately face.

Not long after Union troops seized Hatteras Island, Burnside began advocating for a Coast Division drawn from fishermen, dockworkers, and other maritime laborers

Battle

The trip out to Hatteras Inlet proved, for many Federal troops, more punishing than the fighting itself. True to its reputation, the weather off Cape Hatteras turned rough, leaving a great many men seasick. Burnside, in a display of bravado, abandoned his comfortable cabin on the transport George Peabody and moved with his staff onto the Army gunboat Picket, which he had picked out precisely because he judged her the least seaworthy vessel under his command. By sharing his men

Aftermath

The Union held Roanoke Island for the remainder of the conflict. In the battle's immediate wake, Federal gunboats moved past the quieted Confederate forts and into Albemarle Sound, where they finished off the remnants of the Mosquito Fleet during the fight at Elizabeth City. Burnside then turned the island into a launching point for subsequent attacks on New Bern and Fort Macon, both of which fell as a result. A handful of smaller expeditions seized additional towns scattered along the sounds. Only in July did the Burnside Expedition wind down, once its commander was summoned to Virginia to join the campaign toward Richmond.

Once Burnside departed, North Carolina largely dropped out of the war's active theaters. Aside from one or two exceptions, the region saw no significant fighting again until the conflict's closing days, when the second engagement at Fort Fisher sealed off Wilmington, by then the Confederacy's sole remaining open port.

Slaves on Roanoke Island were designated contraband by the Army, and their numbers swelled through late 1862 as hundreds of additional runaways arrived. During his time leading the Department of North Carolina, Foster named Horace James, a Congregational chaplain, to the post of "Superintendent of Negro Affairs for the North Carolina District" in 1863, urging him to help former slaves gain education, cultivate food, and find employment. James, working out of New Bern, oversaw the Trent River camp for contrabands there before choosing to build Roanoke Island into a colony capable of sustaining itself. This settlement, known as the Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island, stood as a significant example for four years, complete with a sawmill and its own fisheries; its population reached 2,200 by 1864. At its highest point the colony swelled to 3,900 residents, straining its resources partly because the island's thin soil kept farming yields low. A great many colonists earned wages laboring for the Army, and over 150 men joined the ranks of the United States Colored Troops. Teachers sent by the American Missionary Association instructed both children and adults in reading and writing. The colony marked a meaningful advance toward full citizenship for those who had been freed.