A CONFLICT OF INTERESTS: DIVIDED LOYALTY AND MOTIVATION IN CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS FROM HYDE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA

Abstract

The Seventeenth North Carolina State Troops, Company B (Confederate) and the First North Carolina Volunteers, Company H (Union), were raised principally in Hyde County in eastern North Carolina, but fought on opposing sides of the nation’s bloodiest conflict. The soldiers of the companies were divided in their loyalty by the Pamlico Sound and the role of slavery within the communities on the mainland and Outer Banks of Hyde County. As a result of these divisions, mainlanders with close ties to slavery filled the ranks of the Confederate company, while Outer Banks men with little connection to slavery enlisted in the Union company. Using quantitative and qualitative methods to examine loyalty in eastern North Carolina’s coastal plain and Outer Banks reveals that the soldiers of Hyde County were divided in loyalty by their relationships to slavery and racial hierarchy but motivated throughout the war by additional demographic factors and circumstances. The mainland Confederates and Banker Federals of Hyde County were divided in loyalty by differing connections to slavery, and their military service reflects the stark divide that existed between the mainland and Outer Banks societies of coastal North Carolina during the antebellum period and the Civil War.