Henry Nutt, a prominent Wilmington merchant, wrote to Governor Zebulon B. Vance about reports of a planned slave insurrection in southeastern North Carolina and the measures taken to suppress it. By 1864 the shortage of white men available to enforce slavery had become a widespread problem for the Confederacy, where in some counties as many as 90 percent of white males of military age had been taken into the army. With so few white men at home, it became increasingly difficult to sustain the patrols that had helped maintain slavery in the antebellum South by monitoring roads and capturing runaways. Authorities in North Carolina and elsewhere were further alarmed by cases in which escaped slaves joined bands of Confederate deserters. The number of persons who were executed for their involvement with the slave rebellion allegedly planned in North Carolina in December 1864 is not known. Captain Lewis H. Webb, an artillery officer from Richmond County serving near Weldon, would write in his diary on December 22 that “numerous arrests of slaves have been made & several hung by the incensed citizens” after the discovery of an insurrection planned for Christmas night. In what may have been a reference to the same incident, David P. Conyngham of the New York Herald reported in a dispatch sent from Fayetteville on March 12, 1865, that Confederate authorities had discovered a plot by slaves from nearby Laurinburg to “force their way” toward Sherman’s army as it marched through the Carolinas, and that “after a kind of a mock trial, twenty-five were hung.”
Prospect Hall P.O. Bladen Cty. N.C.
12th Decr 1864
To his Excellency
Z. B. Vance Governor N.C.
Raleigh N.C.
Governor
I presume, on this, you have heard all the particulars, from parties on the spot, but as it is possible you may not have been so informed, I feel it my duty to avail myself of this, the earliest opportunity to inform you of the discovery of a well planned, formidable, & most diabolical scheme of Insurrection among the negroes of this section of the state, extending from Troy, in Montgomery County to Society Hill in So Carolina, how far it extends on either side of the line between these points is not known. Their courier was arrested on his way into Robeson County, his confessions led to the arrest of some forty or fifty others on the above line, a list of one hundred & ten names were found. The country is aroused & every one on the alert & parties are now out in search of as many of the culprits as can be found, but the country is very deficient in men to arrest & convey them to a safe prison. The negroes all tell the same story. That there are some white men (deserters) concerned. That they were regularly organized, by the election of a Chief, Captains, Lieutenants, couriers &c. rules & regulations were adopted for their government & action, one of their rules was that all negroes who refused to participate were to be murdered, & about Christmas the general massacre was to commence of all white persons, regardless of age, sex or condition, except such as they might choose & select for wives or concubines. One of the negroes was hung in Richmond County on friday last & some four or five others were to be hung to day, some forty others would be sent to prison for safety & trial, but their is no jail in Robeson, or this county & there are no spare men to send them by, it is considered unsafe to keep or to send them away. Consequently I think it is more than probable the whole of them will be hung by the enraged populace without the form or sanction of the civil Law.
Under such circumstances, I submit, whether it would not be well to call the attention of the Legislature now in session to the subject of local defence & protection against such enemies, & if there is no existing law for summary punishment and execution, whether it would not be well for them to enquire into the practicability of authorizing three or more Magistrates to try & adjudge under proper restrictions all such, & similar cases, & to dispose of them summarily, without the delays, risk of escapes, expence, & demoralizing effects of a long course of law through the courts, for such offences as Insurrection, Rape, Murder, Rebellion &c by negroes upon whites. Summary punishment is required, & such punishment, is & will be sustained by public opinion, with or without the sanction of the Civil Law, & if public opinion sanctions the violation of one Law, the precedent is laid for other violations, & where the Civil Law is set aside, where will you look for the limit of excesses, & what protection will remain to the people for life, liberty or property.
While at Lumberton to day, I was told of a most aggravated case of rape by a negro upon the person of a young Lady daughter of a most respectable & wealthy farmer, the negro had been sent off to be sold, the agrieved party followed him to Lumberton, & would have shot him down on sight.
Our Country (this region particularly) is so thoroughly drained of white males from 13 years old upwards, that it is impossible to sustain a patrol, or any police regulations whatever, there is hardly any government of negroes at all, the few old men & women who own negroes tell them what to do & that is all, they have no power whatever, to enforce any order, & you know what the result of such a state of things must lead to, & you know further, enough of the negro character to know, “that he will exist in no community, in any other Capacity, than as Slave or Master.” In connection with this subject I beg leave to suggest, most respectfully to your Excellency, the propriety of instituting, or organizing some systematic plan of preserving, under practicable restrictions & limitations, a sufficient number of men, uniformly scattered over the country, to help make provisions for the people & for the families of those who are in the army, & to serve in some degree as a protection to their homes & families, if it is not done, I fear that it will be difficult to keep our soldiers in the field, & desertions in the army will increase. The scenes being enacted around us at this time, is calculated to increase them. To give you some idea of the condition of the families of soldiers in this county. The court last year appropriated $40,000 to buy bread for them, it was found insufficient, & at last November term $100,000 was appropriated for that purpose, which is now thought to be inadequate. There is, in this whole district (Hollow District) (a large one too) but four white males slave holders that I know of, above the age of 50. & exempt from military service, so thoroughly has been the drain for the army.
And I may here add, that in addition to all the other grievances men calling themselves ‘Impressing officers’ are travelling through the country stripping farmers of (in some cases) all their work animals Horses & mules, & in no case as I learn, has a sufficient number been left to cultivate the farm. Cattle have been impressed as I learn, at the rate of one eighth, counting work oxen, cows, calves, yearlings & all.
What is to be done, are the people to be stripped of not only their own support, but of the means of supporting the government & the war? And then, the assessing & collecting of taxes & impressing of property is so unequal & unjust in its operation, & from which no appeal can be taken, the agents have it in their power, & not unfrequently exercise it, of punishing private enemies, & rewarding friends, thus taxpayers are entirely at the mercy of collectors, who interpret the law as it pleases them, owing to the ambiguity of the law, & the law itself makes them the judges of it & from which there is no appeal. No body complains of the amount of taxes, the people would pay with cheerfulness five times the amt. if the wants of the Government required it, but its ambiguity, which makes it unequal & unjust in its operations, is what makes it onerous & I may say even odious.
I trust Governor you will pardon this long & perhaps uninteresting communication, & hope you will not consider it impertinent. You are the father of us all, living away yonder in Raleigh & it is not presumed you can know the wants & grievances of all your people, unless they tell you of them, hence this liberty
I am Governor
Very Respectfully & truly
Your friend & Obt Servt
H. Nutt