Washington

From March 30 to April 19, 1863, fighting unfolded in Beaufort County, North Carolina, in what became known as the Battle of Washington. The clash formed a piece of the Confederate Tidewater operations that Lieutenant General James Longstreet carried out during the American Civil War. Some accounts label this engagement the siege of Little Washington.

Background

Once Burnside's North Carolina Expedition reached its conclusion, Confederate military leadership largely turned its gaze elsewhere, leaving the state on the periphery of strategic concern. That changed somewhat in December 1862, when Union forces marching out of New Bern struck at Goldsborough, N.C., wrecking the railroad bridge spanning the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, a line of considerable importance to the Confederacy. Though the damage proved short-lived and repairs came quickly, the raid nonetheless pushed Confederate officials to reconsider their posture along the Virginia and North Carolina shoreline.

Buoyed by the triumph at Fredericksburg, General Robert E. Lee saw an opportunity to send a substantial portion of his army eastward to confront the Union troops holding coastal positions. Command of this entire detachment fell to Lieutenant General James Longstreet. As Longstreet turned his attention toward Suffolk, another column, led by Major General D. H. Hill, marched instead on the Federal-held towns of New Bern and Washington, North Carolina.

Overseeing Union defenses across the coastal garrisons was Major General John G. Foster, head of the Department of North Carolina. When Hill's assault on New Bern came to nothing, Foster made his way to Washington himself, taking direct charge of the garrison there.

Siege

Trained as an Army engineer at West Point, Foster applied his expertise to strengthening the town's defenses and brought three gunboats into play to help hold the line. Fortifications encircled the town by March 30, when Brigadier General Richard B. Garnett's brigade launched its siege of Washington. For his part, Hill positioned batteries and blocked the Tar River with obstructions meant to slow any reinforcements, while stationing two brigades south of town to watch for relief columns marching overland from New Bern. When the Confederates demanded that Foster surrender, he answered defiantly, telling them that if they wanted Washington, they would have to come take it. Yet bold words aside, Foster simply did not command enough troops to break the siege, and Hill, under strict orders from above, was forbidden to risk heavy losses in a direct assault. The standoff settled into an artillery duel, though even here the Confederates rationed their shells carefully. As days passed, both armies felt the pinch of dwindling provisions, and rain turned the ground to mud, making life thoroughly wretched for everyone involved. Yet even without capturing Washington, Hill was achieving something important: as long as Union forces stayed bottled up, his foraging parties could operate freely.

Brigadier General Henry Prince led a Federal column up the Tar River hoping to relieve the town, but upon spotting the Confederate batteries, he simply reversed course and withdrew the transports. A separate overland attempt, this one commanded by Brigadier General Francis Barretto Spinola marching from New Bern, met defeat near Blount's Creek and likewise fell back. Faced with this, Foster resolved to slip out of Washington himself and take

Aftermath

After the raids led by Foster and Potter, things stayed fairly calm in North Carolina until 1864, when Lee found himself able to release soldiers for a fresh effort aimed at Federal-held positions along the coastline.