Description:

Civil War



Rare Yankee Occupation Newspaper from New Bern, NC dating from Jackson's Shenandoah Valley Campaign

 

4pp newspaper edition of The Newbern Progress, Vol. 4, No. 166, dated April 2, 1862 and published by E. L. Davenport & Co. in now New Bern, North Carolina. With expected wear including chipped edges, folds and creases, and isolated toning and foxing, else very good. Each page measures 16.5" x 22".

 

This newspaper issue was published just three weeks after the Battle of New Bern on March 14, 1862, and two weeks after the 1st Battle of Kernstown on March 23, 1862. Both Union victories, the Battle of New Bern resulted in the occupation of New Bern, North Carolina by Union Brigadier General Ambrose Burnside, and the 1st Battle of Kernstown represented the first phase of Confederate Lieutenant General "Stonewall" Jackson's Shenandoah Campaign. The 1st Battle of Kernstown was reported in this issue under the sensational heading: "Another Rout of the Rebels! Splendid Victory of Major General Banks, at Strasburg, Va. The Greatest Rout of the War. The Rebel Loss Very Large." In reality, while the 1st Battle of Kernstown was a Union victory, Jackson's offensives successfully diverted Federal forces from attacking Richmond.

 

The compliance of a militarily occupied city depends on mind control. This newspaper issue shows how pro-Union forces attempted to win over formerly belligerent inhabitants through political propaganda. The Newbern Progress was unapologetically heavy in editorial content. It consistently lionized the Union and demonized the Confederacy. Unlike pro-Confederate press machines like the Raleigh Register and Richmond Dispatch, The Newbern Progress promised not to disseminate "diabolical falsehoods."

 

Under such column headings as "Heroes of the Cumberland," "An Incident of the Battle of Beaufort," "The Revulsion of Southern Feeling," and "The Blockade Declared Effective," the newspaper editors argued in categorical terms: the morally righteous North was winning, and the corrupt South was losing. All of the news they reported upheld this slanted world view.

 

In a characteristically passionate rhetorical passage, the editors asked, would its readers follow "the wild leaders of the chimerical Southern Confederacy into utter, hopeless, irremedial ruin? Are not the sacred ties of a glorious past enough to stimulate you to make a noble generous effort to sustain the old government of the Stars and Stripes, that is so efficiently and rapidly putting your tyrants and their armed rabble to flight, and freeing you from the shackles of a worse than Asiatic slavery?"

 

And how did the newspaper editors reconcile the fact that their formerly Confederate city was now pro-Union? By making the ingenious argument that the majority of "Carolinians" were never insurgents at all. Under the column heading "The Secession of North Carolina," the editors explained that South Carolinian "demagogues" had conspired with North Carolinian "autocrats" to force their loyal state from the Union.

 

Of other interest are official notices posted by David Messinger, Provost Marshal of New Bern, regarding curfews and passes; a wanted notice for a black runaway slave accused of murdering a white man; and a number of entertaining and colorful period advertisements.

 


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