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.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By 1863, the war along North Carolina's coastal rivers had settled into a contest of fortified towns. The Union held key points near the sounds; the Confederates pressed to take them back. The town of Washington, on the Pamlico River in Beaufort County, was one of those federally held prizes, and in 1863 it came under siege.
Inside and around such towns lived a population the war was rapidly transforming: enslaved and free Black residents for whom a Union-held town meant something the surrounding countryside did not. Every federal position in the South was also, in effect, a magnet for people seeking freedom and a stake in the outcome.
At this stage of the war, the question of whether Black men would formally serve as soldiers was still being worked out. Official Black regiments were only beginning to organize. So the moment captured here comes right at the hinge — the instant before formal enlistment, when the need was immediate and the men were willing.
People & events
When the siege pressed on the town, roughly a hundred Black men took up arms to help hold it. This happened before the formal organization of the 1st North Carolina Colored Volunteers — meaning these men stepped forward without the uniform, the muster rolls, or the official standing that later regiments would carry.
That detail matters. They were not waiting to be called; they armed themselves in an emergency to defend a place, and in defending it, they were defending the fragile freedom that a Union-held town represented for people like them.
Their action sits right at the threshold of a larger movement. Within the war years, North Carolina would contribute organized regiments of Black soldiers to the Union cause, and men from the coastal region would fill their ranks. The hundred defenders here were, in a real sense, the advance guard of that shift — improvised where the formal army had not yet arrived.
Its place in the American story
For generations, the Civil War was often told as something done to enslaved people rather than something they helped decide. Moments like this one correct that. Here, Black men did not wait for permission or policy; they seized the war as their own fight the instant it reached their doorstep.
Their willingness to serve, even before official Black regiments existed, was part of the pressure that helped turn Union policy toward enlisting Black soldiers in large numbers. Roughly 180,000 would eventually serve the Union — a force that changed the war's manpower and its meaning. The unofficial defenders of a besieged town were part of the groundswell that made that possible.
The stakes here were also intensely personal. These men were defending homes, families, and the promise of freedom in the very communities where they lived. That fusion of the national cause and the local, human one is the heart of the story the war's African American soldiers carried.
If you visit
Washington today is a walkable riverfront town, and that setting is exactly what these men were fighting to hold. Stand where you can see the water and you're looking at the reason the town mattered — control of the river was control of the region.
This marker asks you to slow down and picture an emergency, not a parade. There's no fortress to tour; the story is about ordinary men who grabbed weapons because a community they belonged to was under threat. Reading the marker with the river at your back makes that concrete.
It's a natural stop on a route that traces the Civil War through eastern North Carolina's river towns. Let it be the point on the trip where the war stops being about generals and becomes about the people who had the most to gain — and who didn't wait to be asked.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related events
- · Siege of Washington (1863)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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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.
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