~~~~~~~~

This Week's Story

~~~

IT BECOMES MY DUTY TO INFORM YOU

PIERCE, James
Private, Co C
2nd NC Infantry Vols USA

To: Adjt Genl L. Thomas, USA.

Sir: It becomes my duty to inform you that the person above described died at this hospital as herein stated; and that the remains have been interred with the usual military honors.

Respectfully
G. L. Anesworth, Surgeon US Army
~~~

RECORD OF DEATH AND INTERMENT

Name of person interred: James Pierce
Number and locality of the grave: 88
Hospital number of the deceased: 2145
Regt, rank and company: 2nd NC Vols; private; Co C
Residence before enlistment: Hertford Co., NC
Conjugal condition: Single
Cause of death: Typhoid fever
Age of the deceased: 18
Nativity: Hertford Co. NC
Date of death and burial: April 12th and April 13th, 1864

I CERTIFY, on honor, that James Pierce, a private of Captain Edward C. Blount's Company C of the 2nd Regiment of North Carolina Volunteers, of the State of North Carolina, aged 18 years, five feet four inches high, fair complexion, blue eyes, light hair, and by occupation a farmer, having joined or was mustered in service as a recruit by Lieutenant Barstow at Plymouth, on the seventeenth day of December 1863, to serve in the regiment for the term of three years, and having served honestly and faithfully with his company in North Carolina to the date of his death, which occurred April 12, 1864, at Beaufort NC,

AT THAT DATE, he is entitled to pay and subsistence for traveling to place of enrollment, and whatever other allowances are authorized to volunteer soldiers so discharged.

He has received from the United States clothing amounting to thirty-five dollars, since the 17th day of December 1863.

There is to be stopped from him, on account of The United States, for clothing etc received on entering service, no/100 dollars; and for other stopping, he is indebted to Mr. Wood, Sutler, thirteen/100 dollars.

Given in duplicate, at Carolina City, NC, this 13th day of April 1864.

William Kraft
2nd Lieutenant, Commanding Company

~

James' body was later moved from the Beaufort Cemetery
to the National Cemetery at New Bern

~

James' headstone

New Bern National Cemetery

~~~~~~~~

This Week's Verse

~~~

Into the ward where the dying men lay,
somebody's darling was borne one day.
Somebody's darling, so young and so brave,
soon to be hid in the dust of the grave,
wearing still on his sweet pale face,
the lingering light of boyhood's grace.

Somebody's darling, somebody's pride,
who'll tell his mother where her boy died?

Matted and damp are his tresses of gold,
kissing the snow of that fair young brow;
pale are the lips of most delicate mould,
somebody's darling is dying now.
Back from his beautiful purple-veined brow,
brush off the wandering waves of gold;
cross his white hands on his broad bosom now,
somebody's darling is still and cold.

Somebody's darling, somebody's pride,
who'll tell his mother where her boy died?

Give him a kiss, but for somebody's sake,
murmur a prayer for him, soft and low,
one little curl from his golden mates take,
somebody's they were once, you know;
somebody's warm hand has oft rested there.
Was it a mother's so soft and white?
Or have the lips of a sister, so fair,
ever been bathed in their waves of light?

Somebody's darling, somebody's pride,
who'll tell his mother where her boy died?

Somebody's watching and waiting for him,
yearning to hold him again to her heart;
yet there he lies with his blue eyes so dim,
and purple, child-like lips half apart.
Tenderly bury the fair, unknown dead,
pausing to drop on his grave a tear;
carve on the wooden slab over his head,
"Somebody's darling is slumbering here."

Somebody's darling, somebody's pride,
who'll tell his mother where her boy died?

~
(1864.   Marie Ravenal de la Coste)

~~~~~

EPILOGUE

James Pierce ran away from his Hertford County home in late November 1863 and enlisted in the Union Army, to keep from being conscripted into the Confederate States Army.

The last reference by Co. G, 31st Infantry, Confederate States Army, to his brother, Isaac Pierce, dated April 1864, says under "remarks" that Isaac had "deserted" and was "dropped from the rolls by order of Maj. Gen. Pickett." The last Confederate pay to Isaac was October 1863, about the same time that Isaac's first lieutenant, S. B. Pool, also of Hertford County, was listed as "AWOL."

Cincinnatus Pierce went AWOL from the 4th NC Cavalry CSA in October 1863. Their stepfather, Adolphus Askew, also 4th NC Cavalry CSA, was listed as absent and "not accounted for" in October 1864.

A reading of military records and contemporary literature suggests that a lot of other men from the area became disenchanted with the Confederacy.

Some had been drafted or impressed into the CSA by out-of-state militia sent to enforce Confederate law in Bertie and Hertford counties. (The two counties border the wide Chowan River, which by 1862 was overrun with Union gunboats operating in support of Federal units at Elizabeth City and Plymouth. The large Union base at Plymouth guarded the mouth of the narrower Roanoke River at the headwaters of Albemarle Sound.)

For four years the people of the area were under the guns of raiders from both armies, as the Unionists tried to drive through to Weldon to cut the main Confederate railroad line from Wilmington, N.C., to Richmond, Va. Military forage parties, deserters and runaway slaves stole cows, pigs, cotton, corn and meat.

With men from ages 18 to 45 subject to Confederate conscription, there was little male help around, and the women suffered terribly.

And all that the unhappy Confederates in Hertford and Bertie had to do was walk down to the riverbank at Winton, Harrellsville and Colerain and hail a Union boat. Many of them did.

"North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865, A Roster," (N.C. State Division of Archives and History), reinforces the impression that Bertie and Hertford were fertile ground for Union recruiters. The Unionists on occasion signed up men who had been impressed into the Confederate army a day or two before, and had managed to escape.

Of Company D, a unit raised in the two counties in 1862 for service with the Confederate 17th Regiment (2nd Organization), a third had gone home or elsewhere within a month. Another third quit before six months, on their first furloughs. Of those who remained, most died of sickness or wounds in Virginia. By late 1864, the company didn't exist.

The desertions can be explained in cruder ways. Many of the deserters were of the class rudely described at the time as "poor white trash," definitely not plantation owners or slave owners. Those struggling "one-horse farmers" could not afford slaves, and most relied on family members for farm labor. They had little interest in helping the well-to-do keep their slaves, particularly when state law allowed able-bodied owners to stay home to keep slaves in the fields and working. Those with money also had the option of "hiring" soldier "substitutes."

Aside from class envy, it is possible that some of the "deserters" were opponents of the institution of slavery.

There is no record that any of Jesse Pierce's forebears, siblings or offspring ever owned a slave, but that fact could have been due more to economic shortcomings than any strong philosophical leanings toward abolition. Lucretia Eure Pierce (later Askew), mother of Isaac, was reared in a Gates County family that did own slaves. Her feelings on the matter are not clear, and in any event may not have mattered in the male-dominated society of the time.

Lucretia had been married to Jesse Pierce for 17 years at the time of the death of her father, Levi Eure, in 1844. Levi Eure had six daughters, and no sons. One of the six daughters apparently wanted nothing to do with slaves.

Eure's will stated that "all my Negros and their increase (are) to be equally divided among five of my daughters, to them and their heirs forever." He specifically exempted Lucretia, who in lieu of becoming a slave-owner was awarded "furniture, a cow, a calf, and the sum of One Hundred and Fifty Dollars," money that the other five daughters did not receive

Frank Pearce of Raleigh said in 1973 that when he asked his grandfather why he had not stayed "true" to the South, Isaac replied: "Where I lived, there were people who didn't like us much better than the Negroes, and I kind of felt like that if they won, sooner or later they would buy and sell us, too."

~~~~~

AFTER

When James Pierce died of typhoid fever in the Beaufort military hospital in April 1864, he was only 18. He was temporarily buried in Hammond General Hospital Cemetery, Grave No. 88. His body was later moved and re-interred in Veterans Administration National Cemetery in New Bern, N.C., Section 11, Grave No. 1962. He never had a chance to realize his hopes of living in another and brighter world.

While James was dying in the hospital, a band of Confederate saboteurs went ashore on Cape Lookout and dynamited both lighthouses. They totally destroyed the old lighthouse, and managed to put the newer one out of commission. It was repaired after the war and still is in use.

Cincinnatus and his family stayed in Beaufort for a few months after the end of the war in 1865, but homesickness soon set in and his family is listed in the Hertford County census in 1870. Milly died and Cit married twice more, eventually having 13 children and living until 1897. Lucretia stayed on the farm near her river until she died in 1885. Little is known of what became of Abigail, Job and Priscilla, or Adolphus Askew.

Isaac married Annie Maria Salter in Beaufort in 1864, not long after James died. He was a sergeant for most of his Union army service, but was reduced to private when several companies were merged and he was disabled by a broken leg shortly before the end of the war in 1865. He is listed with his wife and three small children in the Carteret County census of 1870.

Isaac moved his family to Hertford County in 1871, using a flatboat he built himself to negotiate Pamlico and Albemarle sounds to the Chowan and Wiccacon rivers. He and Annie Maria had seven boys and one girl. (The first-born son died while still a child.) They moved from Trap, Bertie County, to Phoebus, Va., in the early 1890s, and lived well past the turn of the century. Annie Maria died in 1916, and Isaac died in 1924. Around 1900, Isaac's sons decided to settle on the spelling "Pearce" for the family name, hoping to put an end to confusion arising from various earlier spellings.

In 1889, Isaac applied to the federal government for a pension, and then was named census enumerator for Union Army veterans and widows in his Bertie County township. That application, and his later requests for pension increases, set off in-depth investigations of his service in both armies.

Those requests, and the depositions and affidavits which followed, add a poignant final chapter about the lives of the Hertford County farm boys, their families and fellow soldiers on both sides of the cruel conflict in the black-water country of Eastern North Carolina.

~~~~~~~~

This Week's Mailbox

~~~

...... I just read your wonderful "Letter from James" as he writes about his life (The Poor Town News No. 61) ~ and the fact that he is very happy now, working, and the joy that he expresses to his sister Abigail, to let her know all the news, and "please send the watermelon-rind pickle" ...... I emailed this letter to my brother in California (also others) ...... He thinks that your newsletters are wonderful, and he asked to be included on your mailing list. Many thanks, and please keep up the good work. ~ Elizabeth Harvey, Sunbury, North Carolina.

~~~

...... Of course, I'll always wonder if James ever got a girl of his own (Poor Town News No. 61). He is so laid back about it all, and if he ever received the watermelon rinds he would be in heaven on earth, it would seem ...... Quite a picture, too, of the war's pain and suffering with the mention of the families living in tents. It would be reassuring if we could count on all that being behind us, wouldn't it? Thanks for your dedication to sending these poignant stories reflecting so much of American history. ~ Aggie Green, Traverse City, Michican.

~~~

...... I am writing from Berlin, Germany. I am preparing a seminar for teachers (in-service training), who teach 5th and 6th-grade English. Believe it or not: The title of my seminar is: Creative Drama for the English Teacher: "And don't forget the sugar, James!" ...... From a little dialogue with the focus on status I will develop other scenes, parallel situations to show how different roles and settings will ask for different vocabulary, behaviour. Different body language will bring out different phrases or vice versa will demand them ...... Last night I put the title of my seminar to Google machine ~ and, what a surprise ~ found your funny scene about Clem and the waitresses ...... (Culture Clash, The Poor Town News No. 44) ...... I have no idea how Clem pronounces "sugar," but I laughed a lot! ...... I would like to make a copy for the teachers. Do you give your permission? Maybe I'll have them act the scene out, just for the fun of it. For 11-year-olds, the scene would be too difficult ...... I wonder if I will find more ideas on the internet, under your name. I am not very familiar with the internet, but I am starting to love it ...... My other seminar, focusing on Creative Drama, has the title: The Dragon. I wonder if you could contribute to that one, too. I will ask "Google" ...... By the way, the teachers and later the students will add music, rap songs, maybe costumes to the scenes so a little musical will come out of it, a MINI-MUSICAL ...... I hope I will hear from you soon and that you won`t mind if I make the copy for about 10, 15 teachers. (I have no idea how many will come) ...... I am a teacher, teaching at elementary school, but for a long time taught drama, theatre and educational drama at the University of the Arts in Berlin. (Three years also in Turkey.) I also have visited 26 universities in the USA ~ many years ago, faculties, that teach drama. Now I am putting some programs together about using creative drama for the purpose of learning or teaching English ...... Best wishes and thanks for the fun I had reading the story. ~ Marlies Krause, Berlin, Germany.

~~~

...... I was astounded to read the first three chapters from your "Chawanook ~ Menatonan's River" (The Poor Town News No. 30 and "Clem's Bookshelf") ...... I've been researching this very subject for about a year and a half for an historical fiction account of the artist-naturalist Mark Catesby, active in the 1710s in Williamsburg and 1720s around Charleston. After reading some of the basic literature on the Roanoke Colony I was pursuing the legendary connection with the Lumbee Indians. However, I came across a reference (I believe it was Quinn, Set for Fair Roanoke, or perhaps one of his other books) that conjectured that it was much more likely that if there were any descendants of the Colonists they probably would have been absorbed into a closer group of Indians such as the Chowan(oke). This suits my purposes since it is much easier to postulate a connection between Catesby and the Chowan Indians than the more remote Lumbees. By looking at various maps, especially the Moseley map, I thought it was at least plausible to make the connection between Roanoke and the Chowans and later (by some 120 years) between the Chowans and Catesby. Keep in mind that this is fiction, but I am trying to be as historically accurate as possible ...... Then I stumbled across your website and this will-of-wisp suddenly became very concrete ...... I'm curious to know if anything more has been unearthed about the Roanoke-Chowan connection. Unlike the Lumbees, I've found virtually nothing about the Chowan group. Are you able to furnish any references to this group? Particularly during the early 18th century when Catesby was possibly roaming the area? All of my research has been with secondary sources except for the obvious accounts such as Lawson. If there are other people involved in doing work in this field, I'd like to be able to communicate with them ...... As an aside, I must mention that since I am also mapping Catesby's activity in London between his two trips (1719-21), I just got a copy of the Rocque 1744 map of London. If I photocopy all the plates and assemble the 24 sheets, the resulting map would measure 7 by 13 feet! ...... I'm so involved in all the history that I keep losing sight of my main focus, which is the book he produced full of hand-colored images: The Natural History ...... Beyond any historical reference you may have to offer, I must say I was impressed with your "grassroots" approach that made the whole concept of survival sound plausible. Some day I wish I could kayak the Chowan ...... I'd like to thank you for "taking me along" through your photo essay. Sincerely. ~ Alex Seltzer.

~~~