Tag Archives: Union occupation

26 April 1863: “…we are in the best quarters we have had since leaving Boston, so we ought not to grumble.”

Item description: Diary entry, dated 26 April 1863, by John J. Wythe, who served in Co. E of the 44th Massachusetts Volunteers. He describes his accommodations (a house on Broad Street) in New Bern, North Carolina, during the Union Army’s … Continue reading

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24 March 1863: “To-day the lines have been open, and the women of the suburbs have been thronging into town to buy a little sugar, coffee, snuff, &c., especially snuff.”

Item description: Published letter, dated 24 March 1863, written by Corporal Zenas T. Haines, Company D, 44th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. The letter is an excerpt from Haines’ account, Letters from the Forty-Fourth Regiment M.V.M.: A Record of the Experience of a Nine … Continue reading

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21 March 1863: “Her bondage, if such it can be called, sits lightly upon her; but she has no sympathy for rebels…”

Item description: Published letter, dated 21 March 1863, written by Corporal Zenas T. Haines, Company D, 44th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. The letter is an excerpt from Haines’ account, Letters from the Forty-Fourth Regiment M.V.M.: A Record of the Experience of a Nine … Continue reading

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23 February 1863: “The negro soldiers have surpassed the expectations even of most of their friends.”

Item description: Letter, 23 February 1863, from Captain Edward W. Hooper (1839-1901) to Henry W. Foote. Capt. Hooper was serving on the staff of Gen. Rufus Saxton during the “Port Royal Experiment.” Item citation: Folder 1a in the Penn School Papers, #3615, Southern Historical … Continue reading

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21 February 1863: “Drawing of ‘Gen. Ledlie’s H.Q., St. Helena Island S.C.'”

Item description: Drawing, dated 21 February 1863, of “Gen. Ledlie’s H.Q., St. Helena Island S.C.,” drawn by Herbert E. Valentine, a private in Company F of the 23rd Massachusetts Volunteers, who served in the United States Army between 1861 and 1864 … Continue reading

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2 January 1863: “…the ladies were under a guard of Federal Soldiers haing spent the night in Jail and part of the time in a Criminals Cell!!

Item Description: Rev. Overton Bernard recounts the changing social conditions brought about by Union occupation and notions of emancipation. A white slave owner’s son, wife, and his wife’s friends were briefly imprisoned after an enslaved or servant woman was slapped for her … Continue reading

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20 December 1862: “…you never sean men go so fast in your life…”

Item Description: Letter, 20th December 1862, from George W. Harris, a sailor on the U.S.S. Richmond in the vicinity of New Orleans, LA, to his aunt in Philadelphia, PA. Item Citation: From the George W. Harris Letters #3657-z, Southern Historical Collection, … Continue reading

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17 December 1862: “MAP of The Route Marched by the Foster Expedition Dec, 1862”

Item description: Newton Wallace, Company I, 27th Massachusetts Infantry, drew this map of the route the Foster expedition took through eastern North Carolina, moving from New Bern to Goldsboro in December 1862. It includes towns, railroads, roads, water features, and … Continue reading

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27 September 1862: “…have got to go back again as there is a mistake in papers…”

Item description: Newton Wallace, Company I, 27th Massachusetts Infantry, noted in his diary entry for 26 September that he “started on board the Eagle for Newberne [North Carolina] with Discharge Papers,” but his entry for 27 September states that there … Continue reading

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27 August 1862: “I was not afraid, slept with the doors open. the pickets with the guns at the street corners seemed protection for me.”

Item description: Entry, dated 27 August 1862, from the diary of Mahala Roach of Vicksburg, Miss. Mahala P. H. Roach (1825-1905) was the daughter of Dick H. Eggleston, M.D., and Elizabeth Gildart Eggleston (d. 1895), and grew up in Woodville, Wilkinson … Continue reading

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