And in 1861, 71% of North Carolina's slave population resided in the Coastal Plain Region, with the Southern Appalachian Mountains considered the poorest region of North Carolina (North Carolina Regions). Consequently, the Reconstruction witnessed many bankrupted industries in North Carolina (North Carolina: American Civil War Reconstruction to World War One), including agriculture. During the American Civil War, houses were stripped of draperies and carpets to provide clothing and shelter for North Carolina's troops. Even donated church bells were melted down and recast as cannon. Parched corn was substituted for coffee, and spinning wheels once more competed with power looms. Yet opportunistic merchants and unscrupulous blockade runners continued to sell their goods at the highest prices the market would bear. Bacon soared from $.33 to $7.50 per pound, wheat went from $3 to $50 a bushel, and coffee was selling at $100 per pound. While at least 125,000 Tar Heels served in service of the Confederate States of America, almost eight times that number remained at home. Confronted with scarcities, exorbitant prices, and depreciating currency, farm wives and plantation mistresses, old men and small children, free blacks and domestic servants strove to make ends meet. 

North Carolina American Civil War Military Contributions

The total white population of the eleven seceding states was 5,441,320 – North Carolina’s was 629,942, and it was third in white population. North Carolina, however, provided more troops to the Confederacy than any other Southern state.

On November 19, 1864, Adjutant-General R. C. Gatlin, a most careful and systematic officer, made an official report to the governor on this subject. The following figures, compiled from that report by Mr. John Neathery, give the specific information:

--Number of troops transferred to the Confederate service, according to original rolls on file in this office: 64,636

--Number of conscripts between ages of 18 and 45, as per report of Commandant of Conscripts, dated September 30, 1864: 18,585

--Number of recruits that have volunteered in the different companies since date of original rolls (compiled): 21,608

--Number of troops in unattached companies and serving in regiments from other states: 3,103

--Number of regular troops in State service: 3,203

Total offensive troops: 111,135

--To these must be added: Junior reserves: 4,217

--Senior reserves: 5,686

Total troops in active service: 121,038 

--Then, organized and subject to emergency service in the State, Home Guard, and Militia: 3,962

Total troops, armed, equipped and mustered into State or Confederate service: 125,000

Remarkable proof of the State’s brave devotion to the Confederacy is noteworthy in this connection. As shown by the 1860 census, the total number of men in North Carolina between the ages of 20 and 60, the extreme limits of military service, was 128,889. Subtract the 125,000 troops furnished, and it reveals the extraordinary fact that there were only 3,889 men subject to military duty who were not in some form of military service. Most of these 3,889 were exempted because they were serving the State in the following civil capacities: magistrates, county officers, dispensers of public food, etc. So, practically, every man in the State was serving the State or the Confederacy.

The greatest loss sustained by any regiment (North or South) during the Civil War was the Twenty-sixth North Carolina Infantry Regiment at Gettysburg. It sent more than 800 men into action and more than eighty percent were disabled.

North Carolina furnished roughly one-sixth of the entire Confederate Army. And at the surrender at Appomattox, one-half of the muskets stacked were from North Carolina. The last charge of the Army of Northern Virginia under Lee was made by North Carolina troops. The Old North State sent at least  125,000 soldiers into combat and more than 40,000 perished, which is roughly 1-in-3 or one-third of North Carolina’s army. North Carolina deaths were more than twice the percentage sustained by the soldiers from any other state. Roughly 6.5% of the total killed during the Civil War hailed from the Tar Heel State. North Carolina soldiers totaled a staggering 22% of all Confederate combat deaths (killed-in-action). The South lost 25% of its military aged men, however, about 32% of North Carolina's combatants died. For every soldier killed in combat two died from disease. 12.5% of the entire Confederate Army that died from disease hailed from the Old North State. While 33 generals were North Carolinians, 9 were killed in battle (roughly 27% of the state's generals were killed-in-action). An estimated three-and-a-half million men (3,500,000) fought in the American Civil War and 620,000 perished, which is more than all of America's combined combat fatalities (includes combat statistics and fatalities for all American conflicts and wars). Diseases and Napoleonic Linear Tactics, consequently, were the contributing factors for the high casualties during the American Civil War.

*Fatalities Equal Dead; Casualty Does Not Equal Dead Fatality Total

Casualties include three categories: 1) dead (aka fatalities, killed-in-action and mortally wounded); 2) wounded; and 3) missing or captured. In general terms, casualties of Civil War battles included 20% dead and 80% wounded. Of the soldiers who were wounded, about one out of seven died from his wounds. Over 2/3 of the estimated 620,000 men who gave their lives in the Civil War died from disease, not from battle.

North Carolina: American Civil War Sources