Carolina City

Carolina City was a small settlement established in 1855. It contained a post office, a turpentine distillery, and the large Carolina Hotel, a favorite resort stop for visitors from New Bern arriving by rail or steamship. During the Civil War, the 7th North Carolina regiment occupied nearby Camp Argyle from October 3 to December 4, 1861. From November 26, 1861, to January 26, 1862, the 26th North Carolina's winter quarters were at Camp Vance east of the town. During that winter, the Confederates used the Carolina Hotel as a hospital., In March 1862, as U.S. forces advanced from New Bern to capture Fort Macon, a Confederate detachment from the fort burned anything that would be useful to the Federals, including the turpentine works, the winter quarters at Camp Vance, and the Carolina Hotel. On March 22, Union Gen. John G. Parke's brigade of Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside's Coastal Division occupied Carolina City, where Parke established his headquarters for the siege of Fort Macon. Parke's troops were then ferried across Bogue Sound to a base camp at Hoop Pole Creek for operations against the fort. A rail spur line carried heavy siege guns to the town wharf, where barges transported them across the sound to Bogue Banks. Parke's forces captured Fort Macon on April 26, 1862. The war left Carolina City, described as "containing fifty to one hundred inhabitants, a few respectable dwellings and the ruins of a large hotel," devastated and financially ruined. It was eventually absorbed into Morehead City.