War on the Chowan River

After Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside captured Roanoke Island in February 1862, U.S. Navy vessels patrolled the Chowan River from its mouth in North Carolina to Franklin, Virginia, on the Blackwater River, making the river here the boundary between Federal-occupied counties to the east and Confederate-held counties to the west. In 1862, Unionists seized Wingfield, the riverside plantation home of secessionist Dr. Richard Dillard, Sr., aide to North Carolina governor Henry T. Clark, and built a fort there one mile south as headquarters for Company E, 1st North Carolina Volunteers (USA). Lt. John “Jack” Fairless, a Confederate deserter from Gates County, loosely commanded this company of local Unionists, fellow deserters, and runaway slaves known as the Wingfield Buffaloes. Despised by the local population and held in contempt by many Federals as “our home guard thieves,” the Buffaloes raided Chowan, Gates, Hertford, and Bertie Counties, pillaging and destroying property while decoying runaway slaves, but they were also highly effective in subduing Confederate guerilla activity here. Union gunboats Shawsheen, Lockwood, and Underwriter successfully defended the river side of the fort at different times. After several unsuccessful Confederate assaults from the land side late in 1862 and early in 1863, the Buffaloes departed Wingfield on April 17, 1863.

North Carolina · United States