After Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside captured Roanoke Island in February 1862, he moved to sweep Albemarle Sound of Confederate defenses, establish inland bases of operation, and encourage eastern North Carolina Unionists. Winton, the Hertford County seat near two railroad bridges, was believed to be full of Union sympathizers. On February 18, Burnside issued a proclamation that the Northern people were Christians and would inflict no injury unless forced to do so. That same day, Commander Stephen C. Rowan's eight-gun-boat flotilla steamed up the Chowan River toward Winton carrying part of the 4th Rhode Island Infantry and the 9th New York Infantry under Col. Rush C. Hawkins. Confederate Lt. Col. William T. Williams hid 400 infantrymen on a high bluff overlooking the river with Capt. J.N. Nichols's four-gun battery in support, intending to lure the flotilla to the dock and strike it with artillery and small-arms fire. Hawkins spotted the glint of muskets from the rigging of the USS Delaware and warned the pilot, and when the Confederates opened fire, Delaware swept past the dock only ten feet away and escaped. That night Winton's residents celebrated Williams and his men as heroes. The next morning the gunboats returned and bombarded Winton, and Williams, his soldiers, and the residents fled. Enraged by the ambush, Hawkins led his men into Winton to loot it and set it ablaze with barrels of tar, burning the courthouse and the county records. Only the Methodist church and two buildings belonging to Union sympathizers were left standing. Hawkins said Confederates had used the buildings as storehouses and quarters and boasted that the burning of Winton was the first instance during the war where fire accompanied the sword. Winton was rebuilt after the war.