Primary Source Material for Eastern North Carolina
Primary source materials specifically curated for the Eastern North Carolina region. These resources may include historical documents, letters, photographs, political cartoons, and other items.
Primary Sources
Sources from Eastern NC Newspapers:
May 1, 1841 – Ad from the Edenton Sentinel and Albemarle Intelligencer
Dec 7, 1850 – “Mechanical Meeting” – The North Carolinian (Fayetteville)
June 24, 1857 – A news item from Cincinnati – Beaufort Journal
July 22, 1857 – A news item from Washington – Beaufort Journal
June 10, 1857 – Insurance Company announcement in the Beaufort Journal
July 1, 1857 – A news item from Kentucky – Beaufort Journal
July 15, 1857 – A news item from Guilford County, NC – Beaufort Journal
July 22, 1859 – Three ads from the Wilmington Journal
July 11, 1860 – “A Constitutional Union” – Editorial from The Semi-Weekly Standard, Raleigh, NC, (For information on this newspaper and its leadership, see https://www.digitalnc.org/newspapers/semi-weekly-standard-raleigh-n-c/.)
Nov 12, 1860 – “Union, Constitutional Men!” – reprint from the Alexandria Gazette in the Wilmington Daily Herald
Nov 12, 1860 – “The Spirit of the NC Press on Secession” – reprints in the Wilmington Daily Herald
Feb 21, 1861 – Two ads in the Wilmington Journal
July 11, 1861 – Announcement concerning JIM, a runaway in Wilmington Journal
Feb 10, 1865 – “Arraignment of Jeff Davis” – The Old North State (Beaufort) Part 2
Other Resources and Links
Reynolds’s Political Map of the United States, Designed to Exhibit the Comparative Area of the Free and Slave States, and the Territory Open to Slavery or Freedom by the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, with a Comparison of the Principal Statistics of the Free and Slave States, from the Census of 1850. https://www.loc.gov/item/2003627003/
Map Showing the Distribution of the Slave Population of the Southern States of the United States, Compiled from the Census of 1860. (Washington, September 1861). Also see an enlargement from the map, as well as the NC portion of the map, printed separately. “Sold for the benefit of the Sick and Wounded Soldiers of the U.S. Army.” https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3861e.cw0013200/
Editorial from The Semi-Weekly Standard, Raleigh, NC, July 11, 1860. (For information on this newspaper and its leadership, see https://www.digitalnc.org/newspapers/semi-weekly-standard-raleigh-n-c/.)
“Mass Meeting in Hillsborough.” The Hillsborough Recorder, Jan 2, 1861. https://basic.newspapers.com/image/466147867
“Runaway Caught.” The Hillsborough Recorder, May 14, 1862. https://basic.newspapers.com/image/64874826
Letter from Zebulon B. Vance to Jefferson Davis, Dec 30, 1863. https://cwnc.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/items/show/2778
Excerpt from John B. Gordon, Reminiscences of the Civil War (New York: Scribner’s, 1904), pp. 13-15. [Gordon was a native of Georgia, and served as a General in the Confederate army. https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/gordon/gordon.html
Letter from John S. Mosby to Samuel Chapman, June 4, 1907. Mosby, a native Virginian, had fought for the Confederacy, though he was personally antislavery. He writes long after the war, aged 73. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/ready.03921%2021_FPS.pdf
Letters from Guilford County native and US Congressman John A. Gilmer to William Henry Seward, incoming US Secretary of State, March & April, 1861. Reprinted in the appendix of Frederic Bancroft, The Life of William H. Seward. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/The_life_of_William_H._Seward_%28IA_lifeofwilliamhse01banc%29.p
Civil War in Eastern NC – Presentation by Dr. Judkin Browning, Appalachian State University
Excerpt from the book The Free Negro in NC, 1790-1860 (UNC Press, 1943) by Dr. John Hope Franklin, pp. 211-21
Reconstruction in Eastern NC – Presentation by Dr. Angie Zombek, UNC Wilmington