North Carolina Civil War Refugees
It appears both Union and Confederate governments failed to anticipate the North Carolina refugee problems caused by the Civil War (estimated 250,000 to 1 million displaced people). Categories of refugees include:
1. Enslaved African Americans who fled to liberty within Union lines.
2. White Unionists who escaped to Union lines from eastern North Carolina (including the Piedmont).
3. Pro-Confederate whites who fled from the Union army into the Confederate interior.
4. Enslaved African Americans whose "owners" forcibly moved them away from Union lines and into the Confederate interior.
5. Female boarding schools where many pro-Confederate southerners sent their daughters during the Civil War.
Interesting reading: Driven from Home: North Carolina's Civil War Refugee Crisis, by David Silkenat. Athens: University of Georgia Press (2016).
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