African Americans Defend Washington
Washington, Beaufort County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
African Americans Defend Washington. Prior to formation of 1st N.C. Colored Volunteers about 100 black men were armed to aid Union forces during the siege of Washington in 1863.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
During the 1863 siege of Washington, North Carolina, roughly 100 Black men took up arms to help Union forces hold the town. Their service came even before the formal organization of the 1st North Carolina Colored Volunteers, making them among the earliest African Americans to fight for the Union in the state. They defended a community and a cause that promised their own freedom.
Why it matters
These armed defenders show how enslaved and free Black men seized the Civil War as their own fight, taking up arms for the Union well before official Black regiments were formed.
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Related events
- · Siege of Washington (1863)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Roanoke Island Freedmen's Colony
Dare County, NC
Established in 1863 by Union troops, the Freedmen's Colony on Roanoke Island was the first refugee community for formerly enslaved people in North Carolina. On land nearby extending to the south, thousands of freedpeople built homes, schools, and churches as they made the first fragile steps into freedom. The colony endured until 1867, when the government returned the land to its prewar owners.
Siege of Washington
Washington, NC
Union troops seized the port town of Washington in March 1862, and it remained a contested Federal outpost deep in eastern North Carolina. Confederate efforts to retake it failed in 1862 and again in 1863, and the Union army finally withdrew on its own in April 1864. The struggle for the town reflected the wider fight for control of the state's rivers and sounds.
Daniel G. Fowle
Washington, NC
Daniel G. Fowle, whose home stood on this spot, packed a lifetime of public service into the turbulent decades around the Civil War. He served as a Confederate officer and as the state's Adjutant General in 1863, later sitting as a superior court judge and state legislator before winning the governorship, which he held from 1889 to 1891. His career traced North Carolina's arc from secession through Reconstruction to the New South.
Burning of Washington
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When Union forces evacuated the occupied town of Washington in April 1864, departing troops burned and shelled it, leaving much of the community in ruins. The destruction came at the close of a long Federal occupation of this Pamlico River port. It was one of many Southern towns scarred as armies withdrew.