Feb. 10, 1862 - The Naval Engagement [and Shocking Self-Immolation] at Elizabeth City

Feb. 10, 1862

The Battle of Elizabeth City (AKA the Battle of Cobb's Point)

Cobb's Point on the Pasquotank River and Elizabeth City, NC

Commander Stephen C. Rowan leading a Union flotilla of 14 regular gunboats from the real America's Navy 

vs.

Flag Officer William F. Lynch commanding "The Mosquito Fleet": small river steamers and tugs, each armed with one or two (at most) heavy cannons, formerly comprising the North Carolina Navy 

* Burnside following-up his invasion of Roanoke Island, and insisting that invading mainland NC would first require complete suppression of the state's fledgling Navy. / Lynch retreats here from Roanoke after losing a few ships, trying to still defend the essential Dismal Swamp Canal. Only the Confederate Appomattox survived to defend the canal, but it turned out to be too wide to enter it, so the crew burned it - bit of a theme today. The Fanny dies the same way here too - as does another Confederate gunboat!  

* Mostly boats from both sides fighting on the river; Union success: only the Beaufort escaped to Norfolk.   

* The secessionists in town would burn it to the ground rather than let the Union [re]possess it. Winding down the Burnside Expedition - with the complete control of the coast of--this portion of northeast--North Carolina. Giving credit begrudgingly where it is due to Wilmington, NC holds out almost the whole war. 

* Some more accurately call this an engagement: neither a full-blown battle nor technically a skirmish: two Union sailors killed and seven wounded; four Confederates killed and about seven wounded. 

I visited Elizabeth City a few days after that battle anniversary in Feb. of 2026, while my home in Baltimore was entering a third frozen week. It was lovely!

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=56797

A Town Divided

The Burning of Elizabeth City

During the Civil War, neither the North nor the South was totally united over the key issues. Just as some Northerners supported slavery and secession, some Southerners were abolitionist and Unionists. These issues could split families, divide communities, and generate violence. As the “official” war progressed, quasi-military organization were formed to wage another war against soldiers and civilians alike. Ambushes and retaliation comprised the “war within the war” between 1861 and 1865.

On February 10, 1862, Federal naval power under Commander Stephen C. Rowan overwhelmed the small flotilla (the “Mosquito Fleet”) of Confederate gunboats off Cobb’s Point on the Pasquotank River. Elizabeth City would soon be occupied and would remain in Union hands for the remainder of the war.

Local secessionists who preferred to see the town burn rather than be under Federal control asked Col. Charles Frederick Henningsen, 59th Virginia Infantry, to set it afire as he evacuated his force. He complied, and the fire destroyed the courthouse, which stood on the site of the present building. Fortunately, the county records had been removed for safekeeping.

Unionist residents put out the fires. The incident revealed the deep rifts in the community between secessionists who would burn their own homes to show their enemy “that they were fighting a people they can never subdue” and Unionists who would risk their lives among their secessionist neighbors to support the Federal occupation. What began as a political disagreement quickly escalated into guerilla warfare.

“The Federals…are in their vessels near E. City. The town has been fired…and a considerable portion burned. It is expected that the remaining portion will be burned.” 

—Richard B. Creecy to daughter Betty, Feb. 13, 1862

“About two-thirds of the town is burned. …The inhabitants have all left and burned the town themselves.” 

—Gen. Henry A. Wise Feb. 11, 1862

“I detached Sergeant Scroggs…with a detail, to aid the citizens in destroying the place by fire, as I had been requested to do by some of the most prominent of them. They only partially succeeded, two blocks only having been burned and a few isolated houses in the suburbs." 

—Col. Charles K. Henningsen, Feb. 12, 1862

Don't worry - we'll get'em all...despite the stars (and map itself) being almost entirely unlabeled. Good thing I did my homework before this trip. 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=56799

A Town Divided

Ambush of Sanders and McCabe

During the Civil War, neither the North nor the South was totally united over the key issues. Just as some Northerners supported slavery and secession, some Southerners were abolitionist and Unionists. These issues could split families, divide communities, and generate violence. As the “official” war progressed, quasi-military organization were formed to wage another war against soldiers and civilians alike. Ambushes and retaliation comprised the “war within the war” between 1861 and 1865.

A half-block behind you on Road Street, Confederate guerillas shot and killed two men on January 5, 1863. At about 10:30 P.M., Lt. Nathaniel H. Sanders, Co. D, 1st North Carolina Volunteers (U.S.) and Unionist civilian Joseph T. McCabe, a former Confederate soldier, were attacked as they returned from an Emancipation party on the northern edge of town. President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had become effective on January 1. Federal troops were required to enforce it, while Confederate guerillas were determined to oppose it.

McCabe fell dead, but Sanders staggered through the streets before collapsing and dying in his brother’s arms at the Grandy House hotel on Shepherd Street. His brother and company commander, Capt. Enos C. Sanders, ordered his men to scour the town and arrest the culprits.

He reported on February 16 that “the company turned out and succeeded in capturing two of the murderers with their guns in their hands. We captured several others, but without their arms. They were placed in prison to await an invest investigation, which was held, and the innocent set free.”

The violence in Elizabeth City, however, was only beginning.

Unionists were not above resorting to violence in confrontations. Confederate Col. Charles E. Hennningsen reported an episode near Elizabeth City on February 10, 1862, during the Confederate retreat. “Generally the population appear to be very true: there are, of course, some traitors, but fur less disloyalty than in Western Virginia. A painful instance of the latter occurred…[when] a man by the name of Lester [Lister] deliberately shot a [Confederate] private who rode into his yard, and then barricaded himself in the upper rooms of his house, refusing to surrender. …After appearing to consent [to surrender] he suddenly and treacherously attempted to fire at the captain, and did fire afterward several times at the men. I ordered the house to be fired. He was driven by the smoke to the window and shot. …[He] was a very violent Union man, and had been waited on a month previous by a vigilance committee.”

*

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=56815

Our Heroes

1861 1865

To our

Confederate Dead.

Erected by

The D.H. Hill Chapter

United Daughters

of the Confederacy

Elizabeth City

North Carolina,

May 10th, 1911.

Erected 1911 by United Daughters of the Confederacy.

*

Not 1862, but this is RICH and going here today too. They still trifling in this town a year and a half later... 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=56765

A Town Divided

1st U.S.C.T. Occupies the Town

...

In August 1863, between here and the river, 1st U.S. Colored Troops encamped as part of a garrison for Elizabeth City. This was the abandoned shipyard of Burgess and Martin (formerly Jim Black’s shipyard). The troops hoped to encourage the enlistment of area African Americans to suppress guerilla activity.

Guerilla attacks here had been so frequent that in April 1863 a garrison of local white and black Union men abandoned the town. The town’s commissioners, unable to quell the violence, likewise abandoned the attempt. Later that month, Union forces returned and the 1st U.S. Colored Troops, raised in Washington, D.C., assisted in reducing lawlessness. In the countryside, however, guerilla activity remained intense, and Union foraging parties were constantly harassed. The black troops remained here only about ten days before they were transferred to South Carolina, where a siege of Charleston was underway. Lawlessness soon returned to Elizabeth City.

“Last Monday night there were 500 Negro troops sent to E. City to garrison the place. All the officers are whites. On one of the Negro banners was a full length Negro very black & a white girl standing in front of him with both of her hands resting on his shoulders with a ladies hat on and on the band was written in large golden letters ‘LIBERTY.’ This is the kind of spirit we have got to encounter all winter as they are going to have their winter quarters there. Is it not all terrible?” — Mary Johnson to Sarah Cain, Aug. 22, 1863

*

A little more about the USCT here later...

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=276326

Wild's Raid

First major campaign in N.C. conducted by the U.S. Colored Troops, Dec. 1863. Freed thousands of enslaved in the area.

*

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=276331

Rev. Edward M. Forbes

Rev. Forbes was rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Elizabeth City, 1844-59 and 1860-60. The present church building, which stands as a memorial to his skill and determination, was begun in October 1856: Used for the first time in December 1857: and was consecrated by Bishop Atkinson on May 9, 1858. He was more than just rector of Christ Church: Truly he was the father of the community — baptising its children, marrying its young and burying its dead. At a time when there were no public schools he organized a private school and taught it as an extracurricular activity. At the capture of Elizabeth City by Federal naval forces in February 1862, when the town was in flames and its inhabitants in flight, Rev. Forbes donned his clerical vestments and met the Union commander at the wharf to surrender the town on the best terms he might obtain. Never did he waver in his responsibility as either a citizen, a spiritual leader, or as a friend to all who came within his sphere of activity.

 

*

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=56812

Battle of Elizabeth City

“Dash at the Enemy”

— Burnside Expedition —

After Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside captured Roanoke Island on February 8, 1862, he dispatched Commander Stephen C. Rowan to destroy the Mosquito Fleet, which had been annoying U.S. naval vessels. Confederate Commodore William F. Lynch’s fleet consisted of small, shallow-draft tugs and intracoastal trading steamers converted to gunboats: Appomattox, Beaufort, Black Warrior, Ellis, Fanny, and Seabird. Lynch positioned his vessels a mile east of here, with Black Warrior in Chantilly Bay off the north bank of the Pasquotank River and the other boats lined up across the river to Cobb’s Point, site of a four-gun artillery emplacement.

On February 10, Rowan steamed upriver with a fleet that included USS Ceres and Commodore Perry. Lynch discovered that the Cobb’s Point artillerists had fled and asked Capt. William H. Parker of CSS Beaufort to man the guns. After firing a volley, Parker discovered to his dismay that cannons had been placed so they could not swivel upstream; after the Federal ships passed by, the guns were useless. He spiked them and withdrew.

Rowan ordered his vessels to “Dash at the enemy.” They shelled Cobb’s Point, then soon sank or disabled the Mosquito Fleet. Commodore Perry rammed and sank Seabird. Ceres captured Ellis. Appomattox, Black Warrior, and Fanny were battered and scuttled or abandoned. Beaufort alone escaped to Norfolk. Having disposed of the Mosquito Fleet, Rowan occupied Elizabeth City, and for the remainder of the war, North Carolina’s coastal rivers remained in Union hands, with the notable exception of the Cape Fear River.

“The Burnside expedition, it did not end in smoke. It captured Elizabeth City, and the isle of Roanoke.” - Unidentified U.S. soldier

“It was one of the best conceived and best executed battles of the war….It was just such a scene as naval officers delight in.”

 – U.S. Adm. David D. Porter

*

It got worse...

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=56809

A Town Divided

Place of Execution

The guerilla war in and around Elizabeth City reached a new level in February 1863. On February 9, Lt. Thaddeus Cox, Co. D, 1st North Carolina Volunteers (U.S.), rode sixteen miles into the country to bring his family to town. According to his company commander, Capt. Enos C. Sanders, “On his return he was attacked by a gang of guerillas, who came upon him from a thicket and tired a volley, killing him and a girl of four years old instantly and wounding the [nine-months-pregnant] wife so that she died on the 13th instant. Three other men of my company were wounded, 1 mortally, 1 badly, 1 slightly.”

Sanders’s own brother had been killed by guerillas the month before. When the bodies of Cox and his child were recovered, emotions among the Unionists here ran high. They asked Sanders to shoot all the jailed prisoners captured after the January attack, in retaliation and as an example. Sanders reported to Gen. John G. Foster, his superior, “I was not myself in favor of doing so; but when I thought the matter over deliberately I ordered one prisoner, by the name of A[ddison] White, to be brought out and shot, which was done by a brother of Lieutenant Cox, for which I hold myself personally responsible.”

White was executed on the waterfront near here, and reportedly his body lay where it fell until his sister was allowed to claim it on February 17. Angry secessionists appealed to the Federal army for the arrest of Sanders. Ten months later, he was detained but never brought to trial.

“One night about sundown without trial or orders of any kind, a squad of them took [White] to the wharf & putting him up as a target, one by one they shot at him until they killed him and refusing to let his body be moved, would let no one come near it.” 

– Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston, diary, Nov. 30, 1863

*

The Mosquito Fleet, Elizabeth City, NC. Harper's Weekly, March 15, 1862. Available http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1862/march/elizabeth-city-north-carolina.htm.

Sources:

Branch, Paul, Jr. "Elizabeth City, Battle of." NCpedia. State Library of NC. 2006. https://www.ncpedia.org/elizabeth-city-battle.