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Updated November 14, 2010.

Col. Draper on Knotts Island - The Arrest 0f Nancy White

Not least among the controversies that would follow the Federal expedition’s return to Norfolk, was one arising from Colonel Draper’s activities on Knotts Island before rejoining Wild at Northwest Landing.
Even before Wild’s column had left Currituck Court house on 21 December, members of his column could see, in the distance, evidence of Draper’s activities. Tewksbury reported, "As we left the village [Currituck Court House], smoke was seen rising from several points on Knott’s Island, showing that Colonel Draper was carrying out the order of the General, ’to burn pretty freely‘."
Soon after Draper and his men landed on the island, they came upon the home of William Henry White, a long-time resident, and according to Wild, a lieutenant in Captain John T. Coffee’s guerrilla company. Wild also claimed that White’s brother, Caleb, and sixteen-year-old son (also named William Henry) were members of the same company. An account published in 1914 states that the elder White, hearing of the approach of the Yankees, "most judiciously had taken to the tall timber, "leaving his wife, Susan, and daughter, Nancy, at home.(1)
Wild later claimed that when Colonel Draper told Mrs. White that he was going to burn her home, she responded testily that if he did, "there will be no houses left standing on this island." From this remark, Draper inferred that she meant that "her family would burn all the Union houses on Knotts Island." Draper then told Mrs. White that her comment made it necessary for her to accompany him, as a hostage, to Norfolk. When Mrs. White protested that she was about to give birth, Draper responded that it would then be necessary for her daughter, Nancy, to accompany his regiment to Norfolk.(2) At about this time, Draper’s men set fire to William Henry White’s home, boats and out-buildings, which were "burned to the ground," along with the nearby home of his brother, Caleb White, and Oak Grove Church. (3) Nancy was taken with Draper’s regiment, marching north toward Norfolk.
The day was a frightening one for Nancy. Not only had she witnessed the burning of her home, but she was forced to leave her mother and accompany Colonel Draper and hundreds of other strangers to an unknown destination. She would soon learn however, that not all of the Yankees agreed with Colonel Draper’s methods.(4)
Draper and his men, with their young prisoner in tow, marched north into Virginia, to the Federal outpost at Pungo Point, on the east bank of the North River. There, on the estate of wealthy farmer Harper Ackiss, the 98th New York Infantry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Frederick F. Wead, had its winter quarters, made more comfortable by the construction of additional cabins.
Draper and his men arrived at Pungo Point during the afternoon of Tuesday, 22 December 1863. When he learned of Draper’s actions on Knotts Island, Wead was shocked and angry, and a violent argument arose between the two Yankee commanders. Wead told Draper that his treatment of Nancy White and her family was a criminal violation of the law of war.
Then there was the matter of young Nancy White now in Norfolk. The people of Norfolk soon learned of her situation, some believing that the Yankees held her in the Fort Norfolk jail. She was the subject of correspondence from sympathetic citizens, including Norfolk lawyers Charles Butts and J. Parker Jordan, as well as her uncle James White, all of whom set up a considerable clamor that, in Wild’s words, "exercised the minds of the Secessionists of Norfolk vastly."
Wild found himself obliged to draft a detailed justification of Colonel Draper’s conduct on Knotts Island. The gist of his argument was that Draper was compelled to detain Nancy because of the threats made by her mother, and that she was no longer being held as a hostage, but only as a witness to the stormy altercation between Colonels Draper and Wead. In that regard, and in justification of his continuing to hold her in custody, he insisted that he did "not intend to have her tampered with by Lt. Col. Wead and his gang."
Wild claimed that his men had treated Nancy well, and that she had never complained. Noting that when arrested by Colonel Draper, Nancy had expressed concem over what she might wear, he pointed out that she still had the trunk of clothing Colonel Draper had allowed her to take from her home. Nancy’s detention became unnecessary after Butler resolved the Wead-Draper dispute, and it is likely that the Yankees released her by mid-January 1864. Draper’s own account of what happened on Knotts Island on 21 December, and at Pungo Point on 22 December, could shed considerable light on this dim area. Curiously, however, his 24 December 1863 report to General Wild regarding his activities after leaving Elizabeth City does not mention those occurring on Knotts Island, even though Wild claimed that William Henry White, whose home Draper had burned, was a Rebel officer. Neither does Draper make any reference to his dispute with Lt. Col. Wead at Pungo Point. A transcript of this report is at the end of this article.
According to tradition passed down in Nancy White's family, on the evening after Draper took her away, her mother (Susan White) gave birth to a son who she named Marshall. It was, not surprisingly, a difficult delivery, leaving Sarah ill, a matter which somehow came to General Wild’s attention. Nancy survived the war, married, and left a daughter, Mary Balance Dey. Many years afterward, a writer for Southern History Society Papers described Nancy as a "most charming matron . . . who recalls most vividly . . . [being] arrested . . . and brought a prisoner to Norfolk .... Those must have remained painful memories, however. According to stories passed down in her family, she recorded her experiences as a prisoner of the Yankees on "an old yellow sheet of paper," but even after her death, her daughter would not allow anyone to see it because her mother considered the episode such a personal disgrace.” Nancy’s grave is on Knotts Island just a few yards from the place where she first encountered Draper in 1863.

FOOTNOTES:

1. Wild to Barnes, 10 January 1864, Wild Papers, SHC—UNC, Chapel Hill. W. B. Browne, "Stranger than Fiction,' Southern Historical Society Papers (hereafter SHSP), 29 (April 1914): 184. According to family tradition among the descendants of William Henry White, he was hiding nearby in the marsh known as 'fresh pond.'
2. Ibid. The 1914 article says Nancy White was age ten at the time she was arrested by Draper; the story passed down in her family places her age at sixteen; the 1860 census shows that she was twenty-one; and the headstone on her grave indicates that she was twenty-three. Her great·great-nephew, Dale Beasley of Knotts Island, gives greater credence to the later date.
3. Tradition passed down in Nancy White’s family introduces other discrepancies, including: that the Yankees spared the home of Nancy’s father, William Henry White, and burned only his out-buildings, and that Nancy was kept at Norfolk for six months with no change of clothing. Manuscript account of Alyda White Beasley, great granddaughter of William Henry White [Sr.], Special Collections, Currituck County Library, Currituck, N.C.
4. He arrested two ladies of high character . . . and . . . brought them as hostages for the return of the two negroes. He also arrested a young lady of good family and as I learn and believe, treated her very badly-nay inhumanely, and holds her also as a hostage." E. A. Wild Papers, USAMHI.

General Wild’s Report to General Barnes Regarding Nancy White Jan. 10, 1864

No complaint is charged or pretended against Miss Nancy White. It has from the 1st been declared that she is held as hostage, to be offset against any of my colored soldiers taken prisoner by the Guerrillas. All this labored defence of her character is wholly superfluous. Indeed I have never heard of anything against her, worse than the written reference concerning “her character & conduct to the officers and men of the Regt. (98. N.Y. Vols) stationed at Ackiss' Ferry." (Pongo Bridge).
She has been uniformly well treated—and comfortably lodged in company with 2 other women—wives of guerrillas. She has never made the slightest complaint of her condition. On the contrary, in writing to her mother, she praised our kind treatment and consideration, etc. etc. and the hardest thing she could find to write was this "After all, it is not like home.”
Their place of confinement has been kept secret. And this circumstance has exercised the minds of the Secessionists of Norfolk vastly. So that for some time we were pestered with inquiries as to their locality, with applications for permission to visit them, to bring them supplies comforts etc. etc. from persons disloyal, known to be strangers to the prisoners themselves: until I snubbed them all, and turned some out of my office. Among the later ones Lawyer Charles W. Butts interested himself (the within Attorney) asking where they were. I told him it was none of his business. Hence his present activity.
I firmly believe this whole document to be nothing more than a scheme (plot) to find out their prison house with a view to further mischief.
In dissecting it, l expose the following falsifications. They studiously avoid saying that Miss Nancy White is the daughter of a Guerrilla--a Lieutenant of guerrillas. Not a word is mentioned about Col. Draper‘s burning his house & barns to the ground, as also those of his brother, another guerrilla, lest it should be asked why they were burned. James White only confesses that her father "the last time I heard from him was in the Confed. Service.' The truth is that her father Henry White is Lieutenant of Capt. Coffey's Co. of guerrillas. His brother Caleb White is Sergeant of Same Co. His son, Wm Henry White is a member of Same Co. That Co. at the very moment that their houses were burning and Miss White arrested, had gone down in Camden Co, N.C. to join forces with other bands of guerrillas there & assist in waylaying my colored troops and slaughtering as many as they could with safety to themselves. They had made repeated attacks on us. Moreover this very company was guilty of attacking our steamers in the C & A canal, burning one and Firing into another. Now who is the within complainant James White'? He is the brother of 2 guerrillas and uncle of the 3d. Well may he say 'I am the nearest male relative left to look after this family. " And who is the within corroborator, Soloman W. Coffee? He is the brother to John T. Coffee, Captain of this same Guerrilla Co.- and brother in law to Henry White the Lieutenant thereof. Nay, Soloman W. Coffee’s own name stands on the musterroll of this company as testified by Sykes, another member, before the military commission that tried Major Burroughs. But he was somewhat invalid, and we had no evidence of his having served in arms. He makes a great parade of his lifelong loyalty. But he never took the oath unless very recently in order to save his teams. On the contrary he acknowledged to Col. Draper & Lieut Hendrick his disloyal sentiments plainly-candidly—acknowledged that he had already been confined for some time at Fort Norfolk-and protests loudly against having his house searched (for arms) by nigger troops-saying he would not mind it if they were white soldiers.
The falsity of his claim to loyalty is glaring and audacious. So is the falsity of the certificate appended by Mssrs Whitehurst, Bilote, and Wing. So likewise is the falsity of assertion of James White “I am ignorant of the nature of the offence that Gen. Wild charges her with having committed, or the offence that any other person may have committed. I have been told on the streets of Norfolk that she is held as a hostage." He must have been told that by her mother on Knott’s Island to whom Col. Draper expounded it. He could have been told it by every inhabitant of Knott‘s Island. He might have been told it on his way to Norfolk by every officer and every man in Lt. Col Wead‘s command, who had been drawn up in battle array to rescue her by force from Col Draper. And, that James White should be the only man in all this region ignorant of the piratical deeds of his own family is absurd. It is not true that Col. Draper, after learning that the mother’s confinement was daily expected, “still persisted in taking her." It is not true that the daughter then came forward and volunteered to go in place of her mother. The circumstances are these: When Col. Draper ordered the house to be ignited, Mrs. White threatened 'if you burn my house, there will be no houses left standing on this Island" (meaning, that her family would burn all the Union houses on Knott’s Island) The Col. told her she must go along with him. When she found herself really arrested, she began to beg off. But the Col. remarked that the nature of her threat gave a double reason why she should go as a hostage. He was then told that she was near her confinement. He at once called up Nancy and asked her if she would go in place of her mother. She hesitated some 5 minutes. Then Col. D. decided for her, and told her she must go with him. She directly thought of her clothing. She had 'nothing to wear.’ The Col. told her she should take her trunk along, and take her own time to dress at another house where they were to pass the night. Her trunk and Nancy still hold together.
White also complains that her mother has never heard from her since, and that he is unable to inform her of the critical state of her mother’s health. This is untrue. We have never objected to her receiving or sending messages through us. On the contrary, soon after her mother’s confinement a messenger came, and she received the news. And she afterwards wrote a letter to her mother. Again today the news contained in this documents has been imparted to her, and we have just sent another of her letters to her mother to the care of Lawyer Butts. But this does not satisfy them. They are all determined to see her.
That the mother was confined and was sick thereafter, we know. But that she is fatally sick, we do not know. More, I do no believe it. The story depends upon the veracity of these 2 lying Rebels: James White and Soloman W. Coffee. These pathetic appeals "for the sake of her dying mother and for the sake of humanity” come with a peculiar unction from a whole family of guerrillas.
I think if the Maj. Gen. Commanding will read this document again by the light of my endorsement he will agree that it is merely a snare.

Respectfully submitted,
E.A.W. B.G.V.

Brig. Gen. Barnes    Private    Jan 10, 1864

Sir I have the honor to submit the real state of the case of Miss White. I was ready to release her 10 days ago, but that she is an important witnesses in the trial between Col. Draper and Lt. Col Wead before Maj. Gen. Butler himself. The time was appointed for last Tuesday-but Gen. Butler went to Washington and postponed it till Tuesday Jan 12. She must appear at that time. And I do not intend to have her in the meantime tampered with by Lt. Col. Wead and his gang. I therefore keep her as close as ever. Immediately after the trial I propose to release her, as she is no longer needed as hostage. One of our men cut off by the guerrillas made his escape through the swamps and got in safe. I have already released Major Gregory an old man of 73-for the same reason.

Very Respectfully
Your Ob Servant
E.A.W. B.G.V.

November 14, 2010. Comment Jack Dudley: My Great Grandfather`s Nephew Wilson Rodgers Dudley from Blackwater rode with Capt. John T. Caffee`s { Not Coffee} Local Defence {Not Guerrilla`s}. Captians David H. Bright and John T. Caffee merged their Company`s Aug.6,1863 and became a Recognized Company with Confederate States Army on Sept.3,1863. Known as the { Pungo Rangers }. It was important for them to be recognized by CSA. That meant if captured they would be treated like any other Army POW. Had they had been Guerrillas they could have been Hanged on site with No Trial.
The Yankee post at Pungo Point was at what is now Old Pungo Ferry Rd. in Va. Beach on the East side of North Landing River.