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This would be used in a 3rd grade classroom

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This would be used in a 3rd grade classroom

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3.H.1 Understand how events, individuals and ideas have influenced the history of local and regional communities. 

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3.H.1 Understand how events, individuals and ideas have influenced the history of local and regional communities. 

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3.H.1.1 Explain key historical events that occurred in the local community and regions over time.

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How did the civil war affect the people that lived in Wilmington and that still live here today

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1.)

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The Wilmington Campaign, 1864-1865, The Battle of Fort Fisher, 13-16 January 1865 | Center of Military History

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The Wilmington Campaign, 1864-1865, The Battle of Fort Fisher, 13-16 January 1865

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With Fort Fisher under Union control, Confederate forces quickly evacuated the remaining defenses of the lower Cape Fear. In February, army reinforcements under Maj. Gen. John Schofield marched on Wilmington. In a three-pronged offensive, Union troops advanced up the east and west banks of the Cape Fear River, with Admiral Porter's shallow-draft gunboats bringing up the center.

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From Writer Philip Gerard

Since May 2011, we have been offering monthly stories about the ongoing human drama of the Civil War in North Carolina from 1861-1865.

I say "we" because, while I have written the series, my work has depended on the help of a talented and well-schooled cadre of professional historians, archivists, historic-site interpreters, and citizens across the state who have shared with me their ancestors' letters, diaries, photographs, and other artifacts.

My method has been to write in the present tense with only the knowledge of the time - not the historian's omniscient hindsight. Because, at the time, the people I'm writing about didn't know how things would turn out. Their fortunes, their ways of life, their very lives, were on the line. That was their staggering gamble.
It was not possible to do this in a neat, sequential order, since each through-line of story transcended the present moment and arced into the future, often tangling with other story lines. So the effect has been somewhat impressionistic, as we've explored the strangely jubilant day of secession, the brave naïveté of the young recruits, the daring acts of runaway slaves, the plight of the women left behind on failing farms, the brassy ebullience of musicians, the grim sorrows of prison camps and atrocities, the dash of a mountaineer legionnaire, and the determined heroism of a black spy.

It is always their own words I come back to, written in the glow of hope, the dark night of despair, the moment of held breath between battles.
So whenever I sit in a quiet library in Charlotte or Chapel Hill or Wilmington and read a letter penned by hand, by lamplight, on the eve of battle, I remind myself that the fellow writing it doesn't know if he will survive tomorrow's action. He feels anxiety, longing, suspense, dread, fear that he will not comport himself with bravery, fear that he will never see his family again. That is what is in the faded ink or the faint penciled lines with such whimsical spelling, the beads of sweat staining the page, the brown discoloration made by a drop of chicory coffee.

After all these months, the war has become so real to me that it is almost unbelievable in its vivid melodrama, surreal in its physical and emotional intensity. For me, the series has been - and will continue to be - an adventure of discovery. I still have a lot to investigate: the workings of the crucial railroads, the shipbuilding enterprise, how the families and soldiers handled bereavement, the uncanny beauty of structure they achieved in their candid letters, and of course Sherman's final march - to name only a few.

As a writer I believe that there are plenty of things happening in the world that defy easy explanation and that I must be humble in claiming to know exactly what happened and why. So I am careful to draw lines around what little I know for sure, content to allow the greater part of history to remain mysterious.

The voices in the letters and diaries have entered my head. Their struggle feels visceral, personal, anguished. I laugh at their jokes and argue with their politics and listen to their campfire songs, captivated. I watch their surgeons wield their terrible tools with such delicate violence that I can't turn my eyes away. I watch the women bear up under terrible hardship. I watch the slaves endure and then, some at least, prevail, and my heart leaps with their triumph.

So I will keep writing their story for a very simple reason: I can't wait to see how it turns out.

The Series' Beginning

One hundred and fifty years ago, our nation faced a trial by blood and fire.

The American Civil War tested every founding principle; clarified every political loyalty to family, state, region, and nation; and called upon citizens in every state to sacrifice for their cause. In the North, the cause was preserving the Union; in the South, it was preserving a way of life that included slavery, the economic driver of Southern wealth and power. Indeed, the war can be seen as a struggle between two economic theories existing in two separate moral universes governed by two very different ideas of states' rights and the lawful powers of the federal government. North Carolina's Legislature was the last of the 11 states of the Confederacy to adopt an ordinance of Secession from the Union, and the state remained bitterly divided throughout the war.

In North Carolina, the conflict was a civil war within the Civil War, as "secesh" sympathizers were bushwhacked by Unionists - their neighbors - in the western counties and parts of the east, and retaliated in kind. People were kidnapped and lynched, homes were burned, the innocent and the not-so-innocent alike exiled from their homes.

Before war's end, more than 125,000 North Carolinians would fight for the Confederacy, and more than 30,000 would give "their last full measure of devotion" - the greatest loss of any Southern state. Five thousand slaves, mainly from the coastal counties, would enlist in special regiments in the Union Army, and 10,000 white men would also fight in blue.

The port of Wilmington served as Robert E. Lee's lifeline until it fell in 1865, as North Carolina was invaded from the sea and by Sherman's army from the south. The arsenal at Fayetteville made precious weapons for the Confederate cause. In a hundred other ways, North Carolina was at the center of the conflict. We all remember Lee's historic surrender at Appomattox Court House. We forget, however, that the war continued in North Carolina for 17 more uncertain days until Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the last Confederate Army east of the Mississippi to Gen. William T. Sherman at a farmhouse near Durham, and the war truly ended.

In this series, the battlefield will never be far off, and the major events of the war will unfold more or less chronologically, but our focus will be at once more personal and more thematic than a catalog of campaigns. In these stories, we address the lives of the common soldier, the families left behind, the slaves and free blacks caught in the cultural sea change wrought by the war.

It's a rich and complex story, and many of its facets remain surprisingly relevant to contemporary life. The war magnified the best and the worst of the human spirit and bequeathed us a legacy that, a century and a half later, we still ponder.

About the author

Philip Gerard is the author of two historical novels set in North Carolina: Hatteras Light and Cape Fear Rising. He has just completed a novel about Paul Revere and his famous ride on the eve of the American Revolution.

Gerard's nonfiction books explore topics as varied as the history of the schooner yacht Brilliant (Brilliant Passage) and the adventures of a top-secret band of artists and engineers who staged a campaign of deception against the Germans in World War II (Secret Soldiers), which led to multiple appearances on The History Channel's military series, "From Tactical to Practical."

Gerard is the chairman of the department of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He lectures widely on the art and craft of writing history-based stories. His book, Creative Nonfiction: Researching and Crafting Stories of Real Life, is a standard in college classrooms across the country.

His writer's credo: "I believe in the writer as a witness to evil, as a reporter of injustice, as a chronicler of human compassion, even on occasion of greatness, as one whose skills illuminate the Truth with a capital T, without irony. I believe it is the job of the writer to put into words what is worst - and also what is best - about us. To light up our possibilities, discover the finest lives to which we can aspire, and to inspire our readers to greatness of soul and heart."

To view all stories from Our State's Civil War Series, visit http://www.ourstate.com/topics/history/civil-war-series

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The Civil War Series: Life in North Carolina | Our State Magazine

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Since May 2011, we have been offering monthly stories about the ongoing human drama of the Civil War in North Carolina from 1861-1865. I say "we" because, while I have written the series, my work has depended on the help of a talented and well-schooled cadre of professional historians, archivists, historic-site interpreters, and citizens across the state who have shared with me their ancestors' letters, diaries, photographs, and other artifacts.

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Although many major battles did not occur in North Carolina, the state played an important role during the American Civil War.

The state provided more men (133, 905) for the Confederate cause, than any other state. This number comprised approximately one-sixth of the Confederate fighting force. Of that number, one sixth (approximately 20,000) became casualties of war. Disease took approximately 20,000 Tar Heels lives, too. According to historian Paul Escott, the state "had only about one-ninth of the Confederacy's white population," yet "it furnished one-sixth of its fighting men." In sum, 30-percent (approximately 40,000) of those fighting for the Confederacy died during the war.

North Carolina provided numerous generals to the Confederate cause. The most famous include Braxton Bragg, Daniel H. Hill, William Dorsey Pender, Stephen Dodson Ramseur, Robert F. Hoke, and James J. Pettigrew. Less famous yet important generals included L.O.B. Branch and Bryan Grimes.

It must be remembered that the American Civil war, at times, pitted North Carolinians against North Carolinian. Approximately 8,000 men put on the Union blue. Of them, 3,156 were white and 5,035 were black.

The election of Lincoln in 1861 prompted secessionists to launch a series of statewide local meetings. In time, the matter of secession was put to the people of North Carolina. Unionists narrowly defeated the secessionists (47,323 to 46,672). On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to "put down the rebellion." Governor Ellis responded: "You can get no troops from North Carolina" and a second secession convention was called. Although many delegates from various counties still wished to remain in the Union, the majority wanted secession. The state seceded from the Union on May, 20, 1861. That day was chosen as a celebration of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence in 1775.

Early in the war, the northeastern region fell into Union hands. Fort Hatteras and Fort Macon, both protecting the important Hatteras port, were occupied in Spring 1862-the military attacks were aided greatly by the United States Navy, which maintained a strong presence along the North Carolina coast throughout the war. During the war, guerrilla warfare raged in the mountain region. During the latter stages of the conflict, mountaineers experienced Union attack and occupation. The most famous raid in the mountains during the war was General George Stoneman's cavalry in March 1865.

Although more major battles occurred in other Southern states, major campaigns were waged in the Old North State. Most of the major campaigns occurred in 1865, the last year of the war. After Sherman performed his March to the Sea campaign in Georgia and turned northward and marched through South Carolina, he entered North Carolina. After General William J. Hardee prolonged Sherman's advance at Averasboro, General Joseph E. Johnston engaged Sherman's forces on from March 19-21 at Bentonville; that battle became the last major engagement in the Civil War. A little over a month later, Sherman accepted the terms of surrender from Johnston at Bennett Place.

North Carolina was an important state during the conflict. The state contributed to the Confederate war effort in various ways; the Piedmont region produced crops that fed Confederate forces, and for a few months in 1865, Wilmington provided the Confederacy's only access to the Atlantic Ocean and European trade. The state contributed to the Union war effort, too. From the fall of 1861, much of northeastern North Carolina had fallen into Union hands, and Lincoln established a provisional government, with Edward Stanly as governor. The ports under Union occupation strengthened the Union war effort as their loss weakened the Confederate effort. As the Confederates lost more northeastern territory, more slaves fled to Union lines and contraband camps were formed.

Political events in North Carolina influenced Confederate policy. After John Ellis and Henry Toole Clarke served as governors, Zebulon B. Vance is remembered as the wartime governor. And he, fairly or unfairly, earned a reputation for being a political thorn in Confederate President Jefferson Davis's side. On more than one occasion, Confederate Governor Vance believed the Confederacy took advantage of the Old North State: the Confederacy, he complained, took Tar Heel men away to fight elsewhere while the state's borders remained undermanned. In 1864, the Peace Party influenced politics at the local, state, and national levels; however, its membership, although significant, remained a minority of the state's voting population.

Sources

John G. Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill, 1963); Mark L. Bradley, The Battle of Bentonville: The Last Stand in the Carolinas (Mason City, IA, 1996) and This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place (Chapel Hill, 2000); Lindsey S. Butler and Alan D. Watson, eds., The North Carolina Experience: An Interpretive and Documentary History (Chapel Hill, 1984); William S. Powell, ed., Encyclopedia of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, 2006) and North Carolina Through Four Centuries (Chapel Hill, 1989.)

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Civil War - North Carolina History Project

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Although most major battle engagements occurred in other states, North Carolina played an important role during the American Civil War. The fertile Piedmont region provided crops for the Confederate forces, and in 1865, Wilmington provided the only access to European trade. The Union-occupied territories in the State provided the United States with valuable ports and land.

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Danie Landsman By 1864, Wilmington, North Carolina was the Confederacy's last connection to the trade with the outside world. Realizing the importance of this coastal city to the Confederate war effort, Union forces launched an amphibious attack on Wilmington's lone defensive structure, the heavily fortified Fort Fisher, during the winter of 1864.

One of the weaknesses of the Confederacy was its agriculturally based economy. While this provided Southerners with ample amounts of cotton and tobacco, they lacked the industrial means of their Northern opponents. To account for their lack of access to necessary war supplies, the Confederacy would trade cotton and tobacco with the British for the items they needed to sustain their war effort. Due to the coast-wide Union blockade, and the loss of a number of the Confederacy's key ports, Wilmington, North Carolina was the last major Confederate port by the end of 1864. This essential port was defended by the uniquely designed Fort Fisher. Inspired by the design of the Malakoff Tower in Ukraine, the fort was made predominantly out of soil mounds and sand, which proved to be more effective in absorbing cannon blasts than the traditional brick and mortar. The importance of Fort Fisher was stressed by Robert E. Lee who told the commanding officer, Colonel William Lamb, that if he was to lose control of the fort, Lee would not be able to supply his army.

Realizing that a loss at Fort Fisher would deliver a crippling blow to the Confederacy, Generals Adelbert Ames, Alfred Terry, Charles Paine, and Admiral David Porter, devised a plan to take the fort. In December of 1864, the Federals, led by Major General Benjamin Butler, launched an amphibious attack on the fort, beginning with a Trojan Horse-esque surprise attack. In the middle of the night on December 23rd, the Union Navy floated the USS Louisiana, disguised as a Confederate blockade runner, near the shore of Fort Fisher filled with gun powder. Once they felt the Louisiana was a few hundred yards away from the shore, they ignited the ship. However, due to a serious miscalculation, the ship was more than a mile off shore and the explosion did no damage to the fort. The next morning the Union forces began their bombardment, firing more than 10,000 shells towards the fort. Despite firing such a large amount of shells, the bombardment was "diffuse and not calculated...so wild that at least one-third of the missiles fell in the river beyond the fort or in the bordering marshes" according to garrison commander, Colonel Lamb. During the poorly executed attack, a team was sent to scout out the land face of the fort and assess the effectiveness of a land invasion. Despite being poorly defended, the Federals ultimately decided not to carry out a land invasion and by the 25th of December, the ill-fated attempt to take the fort was suspended. The naval bombardment only resulted in minor damage to the fort's sea face.

Refocused and now under the control of General Alfred Terry, the great Union fleet returned to the shores of Fort Fisher the night of January 12th, 1865. Colonel William Lamb recounts of their arrival, "From the ramparts of Fort Fisher, I saw the great Armada returning...sunrise the next morning revealed to us the most formidable armada the world had ever known, supplemented by transports carrying about 8500 troops". That morning, armada opened fire on the land face of Fort Fisher. The long line of floating fortresses rained shells down on Fort Fisher, causing the very earth to tremble. Unlike the previous attempt, this attack was calculated and methodical, and the majority of the shots hit their mark. This relentless bombardment went on through out the day and night of the 13th and 14th, making it impossible for the soldiers inside the fort to repair damages to both the land and sea face. As the sun rose on the morning of the 15th, the Union armada redoubled the efforts. By noon that day, the Union attack had rendered all but one gun unserviceable on the land face and reduced the garrison to only 1200 men.

A desperate Colonel Lamb began gathering every soldier still alive to assist in the defense of the fort, including those who were sick and wounded. During the Union attack on land, Brigadier General Adelbert Ames lost control of his men and the attack became wildly disorganized. Nevertheless, Ames and the rest of the Union forces had gotten such a significant hold on the fort, taking all of the batteries on the sea face and maintaining a hold on most of the northern wall, that the remaining Confederate forces raised the white flag and approached the Union lines to surrender the fort. A month after the Union forces captured Fort Fisher, Union soldiers rode into Wilmington. On February 22, George Washington's birthday, the mayor surrendered Wilmington to the Union. From then on, the Confederacy's days were numbered.

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Danie Landsman By 1864, Wilmington, North Carolina was the Confederacy's last connection to the trade with the outside world. Realizing the importance of this coastal city to the Confederate war effort, Union forces launched an amphibious attack on Wilmington's lone defensive structure, the heavily fortified Fort Fisher, during the winter of 1864.