Title: Letter from Captain Thomas Sparrow to Sergeant William M. Stevenson

Identifier: 0001-b1-fa   (https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/23739)

Description: Letter from Captain Thomas Sparrow, Commanding Forces at Ocracoke Inlet at Camp Washington in Portsmouth, N.C. to Sergeant William M. Stevenson. Captain Sparrow orders Sgt. Stevenson to take custody of the captain's mate and crew of the Schooner Nathaniel Chase of Harwich, Massachusetts and take them to General Walter Gwynn in New Bern, NC. The schooner was loaded with fruit from Baracoa, Cuba and heading for New York when it was captured by Privateers. Captain Sparrow lists the names of the captured men: Captain Daniel Doane, Mate Alonso Tourey [?], Seaman William Phillips, Seaman Charles Smith, and the cook Berroni Spinx [?]. The Civil War correspondence relates the activities of Thomas Sparrow and his Washington Grays from their formation as a volunteer company in April of 1861, until their parole from a Union prison in February, 1862. From the papers of Thomas Sparrow (1819-1884), a lawyer from Washington, N.C. who fought in the Civil War and later represented Beaufort County in the North Carolina General Assembly.