N.C. Town Remembers Potter’s Raid

By Joan Wenner, J.D. · Originally published January 2018 · p. 25

With Pitt County’s proximity to Federal controlled areas of Eastern North Carolina, it experienced numerous encounters and clashes between the warring factions including Potter’s Raid of July 1863. A Civil War Trails marker on Farmville’s Main Street recalls the town’s brush with Union cavalry ten miles west of Greenville. The marker notes Brig. Gen. Edward Potter’s troops leaving New Bern on July 18, 1863, on their way inland to burn the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad bridge at Rocky Mount northwest of Farmville. As his infantry feinted toward Kinston, Potter raided the Greenville area and sent part of his command toward Rocky Mount. Along the way, the detachment occupied Tarboro. When troops crossed Otter Creek two days later, they faced local militia which the cavalry managed to scatter. They attempted to burn a nearby house while indiscriminately firing shots into others. Guided by local blacks, the troopers took back roads to Snow Hill on their southern return march to New Bern on July 23. By August, the Southerners had restored rail service on the vital link in the Confederate supply chain to Virginia. The Farmville Public Library’s Civil War reference section has as a stark reminder of Potter’s visit in its Elizabeth Davis meeting and genealogy room. A salvaged antebellum home fireplace mantel has a visible bullet embedded that is believed to have been fired by a Federal cavalryman while passing through town. While the line of Sherman’s march cut across the central part of the Tarheel State and ultimately ended beyond Raleigh, a large area to the east was bypassed. This eastern region was potentially still available to sustain continued Confederate resistance. In fact while closing in on Richmond, Sherman sent notice to his commanders, “Do not let your command rest on its oars, but keep them going all the time, even if for no other purpose than

Potter’s raiders numbering 800 in mid-July 1863 destroyed an estimated $5 million worth of property. The 200-mile expedition involved some narrow escapes, sharp fights, and skirmishes in the North Carolina counties of Craven, Pitt, Edgecombe, and Greene. Drawing shows Potter’s Edgecombe County headquarters. Courtesy of NC State Archives, Cultural Heritage Special Collections. “The State of North Carolina furnished in the year 1861, forty-two regiments of Confederate volunteers.” “Before the end of the 1862, under the conscript laws then in force, the North Carolina contingent had more than doubled.” A.B. Casselman, The Numerical Strength of the Confederate Army, p. 957-58, in The Century, quarterly, Vol. 44, Issue 6, October 1892.

to exhaust the enemy’s country, or compel him to defend it.” Though some experts have said generally there has been underestimation of the significant impact of Union raids on the conduct and outcome of the war, few would argue they had a profound tactical and psychological effect that weakened the Confederacy’s ability to wage battle. By 1862, Union troops had established control of coastal North Carolina and conducted far-reaching and bold, primarily cavalry, raids that struck into the countryside at Kinston, Goldsboro, Greenville, Tarboro, Rocky Mount, and Farmville. Federal forays into North Carolina created much panic among the state’s leaders, leading to Governor Zebulon Vance‘s cries for help that went basically unfulfilled. An article published by historian Norris in 1996 in the North Carolina Historical Review entitled, “The Yankees Have Been Here!,” notes that on July 14, 1863, Greenville Judge George Howard wrote his wife who he had sent away for safety, “I am as busy as a bee preparing for the coming of the Yankees, probably here this summer.” As one newspaper wrote, “North

Carolina was not left with enough troops to ‘protect a potato patch’ … our state is not receiving justice.” – Major General Edward E. Potter (1823-1889) Edward Potter was born in New York City, graduated from Columbia College, studied law and participated in the California Gold Rush in the late 1840s and 50s. When the Civil War began, he enlisted as a captain in the Union army’s commissary service, and joined the Burnside Expedition’s Foster’s Brigade, in eastern North Carolina. In May 1862, he was appointed colonel of the 1st North Carolina Union Volunteers and served on Foster’s staff during ‘Foster’s Raid’ (the Goldsboro Expedition). In January 1863, Potter became Foster’s Chief of Staff. Later, as a brigadier general, Potter is best known for his highly successful raids into North Carolina’s interior in midJuly 1863, along with skirmishes throughout the eastern part of the state. He would serve out the war as Foster’s Chief of Staff and retired as brevet major general, returning to New Jersey to practice law. He died of pneumonia in 1889 and is buried in New York City’s Marble Cemetery. For further reading: David A. Norris’ Potter’s Raid: The Union Cavalry’s Boldest Expedition in Eastern North Carolina. Wilmington, NC: Dram Tree Books, 2008. Joan Wenner, J.D. has contributed for many years to the Civil War News and The Artilleryman among other history publications and has a law degree. Comments are welcomed at joan_writer@ yahoo.com