Bertie County NcArchives Military Records.....Bertie, Soldier's Aid Society 
Civilwar 
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Gerald Thomas gerald_thomas00@comcast.net February 24, 2017, 4:43 pm

Soldier's Aid Society - Bertie County
Bertie County Civil War Addendum
by
Gerald W. Thomas 

Introductory Comments
In the preface of Divided Allegiances: Bertie County during the Civil War
(1996), I noted that no research effort on the Civil War, regardless of how
comprehensively conducted, uncovers all existing records related to the topic
under research. More than two decades ago when my Civil War study was published,
the Internet did not exist. Today, numerous institutions have “digitized”
records, documents and publications and placed them “online,” availing the items
to researchers. In this regard, I have prepared the following short narratives
about Bertie County in the Civil War based on information I have recently compiled.

Bertie County Soldiers’ Aid Society and Others Act of Generosity

On October 12, 1861, a number of Bertie County women met in Windsor and formed
the Bertie County Soldiers’ Aid Society. Officers elected at the meeting were:
President – Mrs. M. P. Watson; Vice presidents – Mrs. W. S. Gray, Mrs. M. E.
Etheridge, Mrs. William M. Sutton, Miss O. Taylor, Miss M. M. Bond, Miss M. E.
Miller, Miss Sue Capehart, Miss Annie Gaskins and Miss A. Davis; Recording
Secretary – Miss Elizabeth Outlaw; Corresponding Secretaries – Miss M. S.
Britton, Miss E. C. Jordan; and Treasurer – Mrs. Margaret Spivey. The overall
purpose of the society was to furnish goods and supplies to the county’s
Confederate soldiers. It is not known how often the society donated items to
soldiers, but in early December 1862 various goods were provided to the Eighth
Militia Regiment (Colonel Rhodes), one of Bertie County’s two militia regiments.
The donated items included 104 pairs of socks, eighty-two blankets, eleven and a
half yards of wool, six quilts, two pairs of shoes, ten pairs of drawers, one
coat, five shirts, two blouses and $55 in cash. In January 1863 donations were
made to the county’s Ninth Regiment North Carolina Militia (Colonel Norfleet).
The items included 22 blankets, three quilts, three pairs of pants, six pairs of
drawers, 133 pairs of socks, two shirts, 28 pairs of shoes, and nine pounds of
leather. The society contributed $50 in cash to North Carolina “troops” in May
1863. 
	In January 1863, an unidentified lady in Colerain township made a sizeable
donation to North Carolina’s Confederate soldiers serving and hospitalized in
Virginia. Her “generous contribution,” consisting of items that she gathered and
others given by one of her “lady friend[s] of Coleraine,” was made in the “dead
of winter” and was well received. She shipped via a train from the depot at
Boykins, Virginia “boxes and barrels” containing one hundred and forty pairs of
socks, twenty-nine shirts, six pairs of drawers, three towels, twelve blankets,
four barrels of sweet potatoes, two barrels of apples, fifteen bottles wine, two
bushels of dried fruit, turnips, Irish potatoes, hams, rice, sausage, flaxseed,
sassafras root, sage, and pepper. The lady, using money she had collected from
people in the Colerain vicinity, purchased some of the clothing from persons who
were unable to donate. The lady specifically desired that the donations be
provided to North Carolina’s sick and wounded soldiers at Richmond and “the
brave men who fought at Fredericksburg [December 11-15, 1862], and now lie
wounded at … different hospitals.”
Acts of “patriotism and devotedness” to the Southern cause by “ladies of Bertie”
were exhibited toward a Confederate force sent to Bertie County in February
1863. The force, a three-company battalion of the Forty-Second Regiment North
Carolina Troops, under the command of Lt. Col. John E. Brown, was detached to
the Merry Hill area with orders to eradicate a company of North Carolina Union
soldiers at Wingfield, Chowan County.  The forces arrived at Merry Hill on
February 15 and remained in the area until being withdrawn on March 27. The
force twice attacked the Wingfield camp, but did not dislodge the Union
soldiers. (See Divided Allegiances: Bertie County during the Civil War, pages
76-77.)
Brown’s soldiers, having quickly been detached from their regiment, brought no
clothes with them except that which they wore on the march to Bertie. Ladies in
the Merry Hill area laundered the soldiers’ clothes, stitched repairs to worn
and torn articles, and made clothes for the men. One soldier fondly recalled
that “our circumstances were such that, had we been in many places we would
doubtless have suffered many inconveniences which we were entirely strangers to
there. … Our tattered socks were lain aside and their places supplied by the
delicate labors of the fair hands of the ladies of Bertie; and we were often
invited to partake of the rich viands which their tables afforded; our clothing
washed and every other assistance rendered that could afford relief all gratis.
In fact our friends at home could not have been more solicitous for our welfare.
Never shall I forget Bertie, the garden spot of the old North State, whose
daughters, God bless them, remind us of the one spoken of in the Holy Writ as
‘exceeding fair.’” 
Sources: Semi-Weekly Standard (Raleigh), November 6, 1861, December 16, 1862,
January 16 & 23, 1863, May 8, 1863; Spirit of the Age, June 15, 1863



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