Wilmington, North Carolina

“ The utter destruction of Wilmington, North Carolina, is of importance only in connection with the necessity of cutting off all foreign trade to our enemy, and if Admiral Farragut can get across the bar, and move quickly, I suppose he will succeed. ”

“ This closed Wilmington, North Carolina, the last open port of the Confederacy. Blockade-running was now at an end. The trade with Europe of cotton and tobacco for needed supplies, on which the South had lived and carried on the war, must now cease. As the existence of the Confederacy depended on Lee’s army, the most serious feature of a very grave situation was the lack of food for his soldiers. Sherman’s march had cut off the supplies from Georgia, but meat and corn could be obtained from southwest Virginia and the Carolinas. ”

“ Let the prejudiced scoffer say what he will, the Negro has done his full share in making the now illfated city blossom as the rose. We who have for so many years made our abode elsewhere, have made our boast in Wilmington as being ahead of all other Southern cities in the recognition of the citizenship of all of her inhabitants; unstained by such acts of violence that had disgraced other communities. To be laid to rest 'neath North Carolina pines has been the wish of nearly every pilgrim who has left that dear old home. ”

“ Nowhere else in the State has there been so great an increase in trade as in the city of Wilmington. Many ships from foreign ports began to visit Cape Fear River, and, from different cities in other States, regular lines of steam packets were established, which greatly facilitated the means of communication.
16. Repeated appropriations, but never in sufficient amount, were made from time to time by the United States Congress for the improvement of Cape Fear and other watercourses in North Carolina. ”

“ The city of Charlotte has greatly prospered and has become important for its large trade and railway interests. Perhaps, nowhere else in the State have the citizens of a city shown greater enterprise. Its merchants, lawyers and editors have all won the respect and admiration of other communities, and have raised their city to such prosperity that it is now rapidly becoming a rival of Wilmington and Raleigh, and taking place in the front rank among North Carolina's emporiums. ”

“ A female seminary of real excellence and great popularity had been founded in 1804, and young ladies from all the Southern States were receiving a good education in this retired and healthful region.
4. Raleigh then contained about eight hundred people: Fayetteville twice as many. Wilmington and New Bern were the largest and most important towns in the State, but were still limited in population and trade. Edenton and Halifax had each lost importance, and many villages were surpassing them both in number of inhabitants and in extent of trade. ”

“ In consequence of the great defeat of the Scotch by the English at the battle of Culloden, many Scotch emigrants began to settle in North America. The captives in the struggle mentioned had been offered choice between death and exile to America. The emigrants landed at Wilmington in large numbers and formed settlements along the Cape Fear River. One of their principal towns was at Cross Creek, now known as Fayetteville. These Scotch people were brave, industrious, and frugal, and North Carolina has always esteemed them as a part of her best population. ”

“ Liberal support was given to the Confederacy, both in men and supplies, but Governor Vance, one of the ablest of the Southern war governors, engaged in acrimonious controversies with President Jefferson Davis, contending that the general government of the Confederacy was encroaching upon the prerogatives of the separate states. Owing to its distance from the border, the state escaped serious invasion until near the close of the war. Wilmington was captured by the Federals in February 1865 ”

“ Before the war Wilmington was a dull, sleepy North Carolina Town, with as little animation of any kind as a Breton Pillage. The only business was the handling of the tar, turpentine, rosin, and peanuts produced in the surrounding country, a business never lively enough to excite more than a lazy ripple in the sluggish lagoons of trade. But very new wine was put into this old bottle when blockade running began to develop in importance. ”

“ In both Carolinas the vast majority of the population is rural. According to the last census there was only one city in each State with more than twenty thousand people, and only six places with more than ten thousand.
In Wilmington, the largest city of North Carolina, the American Missionary Association began work as the war was closing. Of the twenty-four thousand people in the county, fourteen thousand are black. Fourteen years ago Mr. J. J. H. Gregory, of Massachusetts, became much interested in this field and erected a fine brick church and commodious school buildings. ”

“ Back of her pulpit stands an immense and costly pipe organ, operated by water power, and presided over by a young woman raised up in the church, educated in the public schools of Wilmington. During the political upheaval in Eastern North Carolina, it was the fortune of Rev. Philip Le Grand, D. D., to be the pastor of St. Stephen's, in Wilmington, and there is living to-day. Many men and women owe their lives to the wonderful presence of mind, superior tact and persuasiveness of this grave, good man. Besides being a minister, he had filled many positions of trust in the South. ”

“ The additions, amounting to exactly one hundred pages of text, are supplemented by six rare maps and a thoroughly adequate index of forty-four pages. The most important additions are ‘Wilmington in the forties,’ eight papers by John MacLaurin which originally appeared in the local newspapers; three reports on Wilmington trade, 1815, 1843, 1872; the sketch, by Miss Rosa Pendleton Chiles, of the distinguished French scientist Alyre Raffeneau Delile, vice-consul in North Carolina (1802-1806) ”

“ At least one- fourth of the British force was dead and disabled, including the gallant Webster, the hero of Whitsell's Mill. General Greene, having halted close by the scene of conflict, returned three days later to again offer battle, but Lord Cornwallis was flying towards Wilmington for safety. ”

“ There are three distinct systems of rivers in the State: those that find their way to the Gulf of Mexico through the Mississippi, those that flow through South Carolina to the sea and those that reach the sea along our own coast. The divide between the first and the second is the Blue Ridge chain of mountains; that between the second and third systems is found in an elevation extending from the Blue Ridge, near the Virginia line, just between the sources of the Yadkin and the Roanoke, in a south-easterly direction some two hundred miles, almost to the sea-coast below Wilmington. ”

“ The great success of this institution has led the citizens of other towns in the State to establish schools of like character. There are now to be found flourishing graded schools at Salisbury, Fayetteville, Goldsboro, Wilson, Greensboro, Charlotte, Wilmington, New Bern, Rocky Mount and Franklinton. Several towns also contain excellent schools of this description for the colored people, and their effectiveness is rapidly becoming apparent. ”

“ Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile and Galveston were all watched by armed ships that sought to exclude the vessels of all countries from entering these harbors. Cruisers swarmed along the whole Southern coast, and it became a matter of great peril and difficulty to send out or bring in any commodity by way of the ocean.
5. This soon led to a scarcity of salt, sugar, coffee, molasses and everything which had been formerly imported from Europe or bought of Northern merchants. Prices continually advanced as such things became more scarce in the South. ”

“ He became a terror to the people of central North Carolina. He captured many leading Whigs, and took them to Craig, at Wilmington. On the thirteenth of September, 1781, he and his associate, Hector M'Neil, with their followers, entered Hillsborough, carried off the governor, Thomas Burke,* and other prominent Whigs, and hastened with them toward Wilmington. They were intercepted by a party under General Butler, and a severe skirmish ensued at Lindley's Mill, on Cane Creek. Fanning was wounded, but successfully retreated with his prisoners to Wilmington. ”

“ In the towns and cities of North Carolina may be found a considerable number of Israelites engaged in the various branches of trade; and this class of our citizens has added no little to the general growth and material prosperity of the State. They have synagogues at Wilmington, Charlotte, Raleigh, Goldsboro and New Bern. ”

“ His domestic relations were not such as to soothe and sustain his wounded mind, and the life that opened with such brilliant promise soon closed in gloom. Governor Burke died and was buried on his farm near Hillsboro. No stone has ever marked the spot. He left one child, a daughter, who died unmarried.
13. General Griffith Rutherford had been a prisoner in the battle of Camden. Upon his exchange, he at once renewed his efforts to deliver North Carolina from her foes. He soon collected a body of Mecklenburg and Rowan militia and marched for Wilmington. ”

“ QUESTIONS. 1. In what condition was the South in 1863?
2. How was the port of Wilmington specially important to the Confederacy? Who was in command at this place?
3. What North Carolinians are mentioned as having risen to prominence?
4. How many regiments had the State furnished up to this time? Who succeeded Dr. Charles E. Johnson as Surgeon General of the State? What doctors had charge of the hospitals? What noble woman is mentioned, and what is said of her?
5. What fierce battle was fought on May 2d and 3d? What did Governor Graham say of the North Carolina troops at Chancellorsville? ”

“ Something quaint, peremptory, old-world and feudal strikes the traveler as adhering in this custom, by which Wilmington constantly pays for the general safety of her promenaders with the offering of a citizen's life and limbs. This impression is right. The city is the best-defined spot on the American map where the South begins and the North ends. Wilmington is, for its own part, a perfect crystal of Yankee grit, run out and fixed in a country which in the highest [pg 371] degree represents the soft, contented, lazy, incoherent Bourbon temper. ”

“ Edenton, |111 |- class="__toc_row_1-m-1 __toc_row_1-1-1 wst-toc-row-1-1-1 " style="" |Chap. 4 |An Act, for the further and better Regulation of the Town called Wilmington, in New-Hanover County, and to establish the Church of the Parish of St. James to be built in the said Town, |113 |- class="__toc_row_1-m-1 __toc_row_1-1-1 wst-toc-row-1-1-1 " style="" |Chap. 7 |An Act, for the more effectual Estabishing a Ferry from Bath-Town, to Core-Point, and from Core-Point, to Bath-Town ”

“ Chap.3An additional Act to an Act, intituled, An Act, to prevent killing Deer at unseasonable Times, and for putting a Stop to many Abuses committed by white Persons, under Pretence of hunting,188
Chap.4An Act, to repeal an Act passed at at Wilmington, in the Year of our Lord, 1741, intituled, An Act to establish Ports, or Places of Delivery of Merchandises, imported in, and exported out of this Province ”

“ Wilmington is a little town, about thirty English miles south-west from Philadelphia. It was founded in the year 1733. Part of it stands upon the grounds belonging to the Swedish church, which annually receives certain rents, out of which they [157] pay the minister’s salary, and employ the rest for other uses. The houses are built of stone, and look very pretty; yet they are not built close together, but large open places are left between them. The quakers have a meeting-house in this town. The Swedish church, which I intend to mention in the sequel, is half a mile out of town eastwards. ”

“ The favourable situation, railway facilities and proximity to the coal-fields of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, to the sources of supply of raw materials, and the water-power furnished by the Brandywine, combined with the enterprise of its citizens, have made Wilmington the most important manufacturing centre of Delaware. ”

“ It is owing to its central position that this city has become the seat of the State legislature, for there are others that equal and even surpass it in industrial and commercial importance, such as Wilmington, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Edenton, Washington, Salisbury, Tarborough, Halifax, and New-Berne. The latter town is situated on estuary of the Neuse River, which empties itself into Pamlico Sound, a sort of vast maritime lake protected by a natural dyke formed by the isles and islets of the Carolina coast. ”

“ The people of Delaware have, indeed, very little land that is not tillable. The problems of poverty, crowding, great cities, and excessive wealth in few hands are practically unknown among them. The foreign commerce of Wilmington began in 1740 with the building of a brig named after the town, and was continued successfully for a hundred years. At Wilmington there has always been a strong manufacturing interest, beginning with the famous colonial flour mills at the falls of the Brandywine, and the breadstuffs industry at Newport on the Christina. ”

“ Large quantities of foundry and machine-shop products and iron and steel are also manufactured. The Pennsylvania Railroad maintains extensive car shops at Wilmington. The city is a prominent distributing centre and a port of entry for the customs district of Delaware, the foreign trade of which in 1901 was valued at $4,911,144, including exports to the amount of $4,679,370. The government is vested in a mayor, elected every two years, and a unicameral council of thirteen members. ”