Knotts Island is an unincorporated community in Currituck County that is home to about 1800 people. Knotts Island is actually a peninsula that is 5 miles long and three miles wide. It is accessible by land from Virginia Beach on Princess Anne Road or by water via a ferry from the mainland at Currituck. It is home to the Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge. From a Civil War standpoint it is known for: salt production; the area where 70 Confederate officers who hijacked the USS Maple Leaf crossed to the mainland; and as an area affected by the December 1863 raid by Union General Edward Wild into Currituck County. There is a Civil War Trails sign on the island that describes some of these events.

The Maple Leaf Escape– On June 10, 1863, ninety seven Confederate officers on their way to a Union prison camp (Fort Delaware) from Norfolk on the USS Maple Leaf overpowered the crew and commandeered the ship. When the Maple Leaf was about 8 miles south of Cape Henry, 70 of the officers came ashore in small boats on the Virginia coast where the False Cape State Park is currently located. After landing, the men walked down the shoreline to salt works on Currituck Bay and made their way to Knotts Island across Knotts Island Bay, see map below from a Civil War Trails sign. The Confederate officers managed to elude capture with the help of local citizens and return to Richmond. The details of the escape will be provided in a future post (link).

In 1914 well after the war ended W.B. Browne wrote an article published in the Southern Historical Society Papers. The article was based on the diaries of two of the escaped prisoners Colonel J.J. Green of Covington, Tennessee, and Lieutenant A. E. Asbury of Higginsville, Missouri, as well as a personal interview with Nancy White. According to the article Nancy White, who during the war lived with her parents on Knotts Island, stated that the escaped officers had dinner at their house and after dinner her father, Henry White, helped several of them cross Currituck Sound in his boat. Mr. Browne makes the case in his article that Wild’s men came to Knotts Island about six months later in retaliation for the aid her family and others in the community provided to the Confederate officers.

Wild’s Raid (December 5-24, 1863)– On December 21, 1863, Brigadier General Wild sent Colonel Alonzo Draper to Knotts Island with 250 men from the NC Colored Volunteers. While there, Draper burned the houses of Caleb and Henry White and took Nancy White hostage. When Draper arrived at the headquarters of Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Wead with Nancy White, a heated argument ensued over Miss White. Wead wrote to Brigadier General Ledlie to state that Draper had no authority to operate in Ledlie’s district and the treatment of her and her family violated the rules of war. Draper would ultimately be cleared of all charges at a court martial on January 12, 1864. Wild had held Nancy White in custody for several weeks on the pretense that she was needed as a witness at the trial. She was held in Norfolk at the home of James Croft, a member of Wild’s staff, along with two other married Southern women and was released on January 16th. The two married women, Mrs. W.J. Munden and Mrs. Pender Weeks, were not released with Nancy White. The taking of three Southern women as hostages did not sit well with the general public and a scathing article was written about Wild in the New York World. Shortly thereafter Wild was transferred to the XVIII Corps of the Army of the Potomac. He was arrested several times for failure to follow orders and underwent a court martial for flagrant insubordination. In July of 1864 Wild was found guilty and suspended from rank and pay for 6 months. Major General Benjamin Butler reversed the verdict several weeks later on a technicality. Wild would remain a controversial figure for the remainder of his life. On April 20, 1865, at the request of Major General Ord he was relieved of duty. Nancy White would return home and would marry Eugene Ballance on May 25, 1875. She had three children, only one of which survived to adulthood. Nancy died on May 8, 1920, and is buried on Knotts Island in the White family cemetery on Whites Neck Lane next to her husband (36.4936788, -75.9163337).

Sources

Escape from the Maple Leaf by Colonel Jerry V. Witt

Edward A. Wild and the African Brigade in the Civil War by Frances H. Casstevens