© Copyright 2000 James David Pearce
EPILOGUE
James Pierce ran away from home in late November 1863, to keep from being conscripted into the Confederate States Army.
The last reference by Co. G, 31st Infantry, CSA, 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."
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