Village of Deep Creek

Village of Deep Creek. "The den of the Rebels". , This is the Deep Creek Lock of the Dismal Swamp Canal, the northern end of the waterway linking the North Carolina sounds with Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake Bay. Deep Creek village evolved on the canal to serve workers, boatmen, and the surrounding area. By 1850, there were about fifty houses here. This was the main depot for lumber taken from the Great Dismal Swamp.

When the Civil War began, the residents of present-day Chesapeake largely supported secession. The canal and its competitor six miles to the east, the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, were strategically important to both Union and Confederate forces for the transportation of men and supplies. After the Federal capture of Norfolk on May 10, 1862, this area lay between the city and Union-controlled eastern North Carolina. Confederate sympathizers used the canal to smuggle supplies, and guerillas hid in the Great Dismal Swamp, previously the reserve of escaped slaves, to raid Union picket posts. Lt. Richard M. Goldwaite, 99th New York Infantry, called the area "the den of the Rebels." Periodic clashes continued until the end of the war.

[Sidebars:] , The Deep Creek Rangers, a militia company formed in 1856, occupied Portsmouth in 1861 and then mustered into Confederate service as Co. A, 3rd Virginia Infantry. It constructed batteries in Portsmouth and Norfolk, and also manned fortifications elsewhere. The Rangers later fought at Glendale, the Second Battle of Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and in battles around Petersburg and in the retreat to Appomattox Court House. Two members of the unit survived to surrender there on April 9, 1865.

Edenborough G. Corprew, an African American born in Deep Creek village about 1830, may have been enslaved in 1862 when Federal forces occupied the area. In October 1864, he and four other freedmen attended the National Convention of Colored Men in Syracuse New York. He returned to Virginia and enlisted in Co. C, 1st U.S. Colored Cavalry, then stationed nearby, under the alias of Edward Sparrow. The regiment served at Fort Pocahontas and after the war sailed to Texas, where Corprew suffered from "overheat" and was discharged on Feb. 1, 1866. He became pastor of Zion Baptist Church in Portsmouth and worked to unite black Baptists in a statewide convention. He died in 1881.