Not unlike during the Revolutionary War, North Carolina failed to experience a glut of immense, crucial battles during the Civil War, and most of its regiments shipped out for Confederate duty elsewhere. Granted, there were significant engagements along the coast—Roanoke, New Bern, Fort Macon, Fort Fisher, Plymouth—but all ultimately concluded in defeats, which gave the Union control of the Carolina coast.
Unlike the Revolutionary War, North Carolina provided more men for the Confederate cause than any other Southern state (over 125,000) and also led in the number of troops killed (over 40,000). Most of the battles were waged elsewhere and fought by Carolinians who had little vested interest in slavery—a compelling irony of the war. During the four-year conflict, thousands of slaves were also lost to Yankee armies, taking up arms and occasionally facing former owners in battle. The combined loss of black and white manpower would hobble the state for the next fifty years.
Early in the war, the Confederate Congress passed the Conscription Act, requiring enrollment of all males ages eighteen to thirty-five. Many Carolina men openly defied the Confederacy, bitterly resenting their interference in personal affairs. This would lead to an ugly internal brawl that would fester for the remainder of the war. Draft dodgers and pro-Union bushwhackers would harass Southern supply lines, loot homes and instill general discord, weakening the Confederate Home Guard tasked with rounding up men for the war. The Home Guard often retaliated indiscriminately.
One famously notorious event involved retribution against bushwhackers who had looted the town of Marshall, in western North Carolina. Hoping to catch the perpetrators, a group of Confederates surrounded Shelton Laurel, a nearby pro-Union community. Finding the culprits had escaped, the Confederates tortured and hanged several old women, then rode off toward Tennessee with a handful of young boys and old men as prisoners. Along the way, two prisoners escaped, and the commanding officer decided to dispatch the remaining innocents, murdering them execution style. Even impassioned Confederates were horrified at these developments.
For the majority of the war, Carolina Confederates were fighting elsewhere or wrestling home-grown bands of Union supporters—conditions that were almost identical for Patriot soldiers during the American Revolution. One final engagement, pitting twenty-two thousand Confederates against sixty thousand Union soldiers, would bring the war to a close on North Carolina soil.