An expert on the Civil War will visit The University of North Carolina at Pembroke on Oct 9, for a presentation, discussion and book signing.
The presentation will be by Dr. Judkin Browning, associate professor of history at Appalachian State University.
“The Experience of Union Military Occupation in Eastern North Carolina during the Civil War,” will draw on Browning’s recent study of the New Bern area, “Shifting Loyalties: The Union Occupation of Eastern North Carolina.” The program will take place at 6:30 p.m. in the Moore Hall Auditorium and is free and open to the public.
“The irony for Carteret and Craven counties,” Browning explains in his book, “is that white residents were more firmly sympathetic with the Confederacy at the war’s end than they had ever been during the heady days of secession.”
Browning explains that residents of Craven and Carteret counties frequently shifted their Union or Confederate loyalties in response to the changing socioeconomic conditions during the secession crisis, early mobilization for the war, and the Union occupation. Incorporating the perspectives and interactions of local whites, slaves, women, freedmen,soldiers and members of benevolent societies, Browning reveals that during the early stages of the war, Confederate support in Craven and Carteret counties was not as strong as in other parts of the South.
Eastern North Carolina citizens were more committed to their local communities than to the Confederate cause. Once the area was occupied by Union forces, the potential financial benefits of working with the occupying army (combined with the prospect that slavery would remain untouched) kept many white residents from resisting the occupation, until Union war tactics and the Emancipation Proclamation caused Unionists to switch their allegiance to the Confederate cause.
Browning’s visit is jointly sponsored by the UNCP Department of History and Office of Academic Affairs, and is part of the “Perspectives on the Civil War Era” Speaker Series. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.
For information, contact Dr. Jaime Martinez, Department of History, at (910) 775-4031 or jaime.martinez@uncp.edu.
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