Framing History: Sunrise over Surrender

ECW welcomes back guest author and photographer Melissa A. Winn.

When I travel overnight, one of my favorite things to do is wake up and run at dawn. I like to catch the city or town I’m visiting at sunrise. I love it sitting still—hushed and vacant, as the rising sun paints the sky. 

Love it even more when the city sits on a shoreline and daybreak illuminates a vast lake, river, or sea. 

Control of coastal North Carolina was critical during the Civil War. Elizabeth City, on the Pasquotank River, was at the southern terminus of the Dismal Swamp Canal, which offered ocean access at Norfolk, Virginia.

Although the city was never the target of a sustained campaign, on February 10, 1862, about 14 Union gunboats steamed up Albemarle Sound to capture the town and block the Dismal Swamp Canal. In a brief confrontation, four of six defending gunboats in the Confederate “Mosquito Fleet” were sunk or captured. Even with the help of a four-gun battery on Cobb’s Point, the Rebels lost the ships and Elizabeth City itself.

Rector Edward M. Forbes, dressed in his clerical vestments, met the Union commander at the waterfront and negotiated a peaceful surrender of the town to save it from destruction. Most of the city’s residents had fled. The city sat still, hushed, and vacant. He stood just about here. 

Melissa A. Winn is the Director of Marketing and Communications for the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Previously, she was the Marketing Manager for the American Battlefield Trust and Director of Photography for HistoryNet, publisher of nine history-related magazines, including America’s Civil War, American History, and Civil War Times. She’s a Senior Editor for Military Images magazine; Editor of Shavings, the member newsletter of the Early American Industries Association, is a member of the Board of Directors of the Civil War Roundtable Congress; and President of the Bull Run Civil War Round Table.