Coastal Peril and Possibilities
North Carolina’s unique coast offered peril and possibility for both sides during the American Revolution. It has the largest coastline of the original 13 states. Today this measures 1,200 miles, including the ragged edge inside the line of barrier islands now called the “Outer Banks,”1 with 320 facing the ocean. That line is punctured by nearly two dozen cuts or “inlets,” the number and locations changing over the years as storms closed or opened them. Only three were deep and wide enough to allow ocean-going ships through in the 1770s, and shifting sands constantly changed the inlets’ bottoms. Unless captains knew the waters well, they waited outside the inlets for local guides called “pilots” to row out—most of them African-American, some enslaved—who knew where the shallow areas were (“shoals” or “bars”). Otherwise the ships risked getting stuck or punctured.
That’s why pirates of the early 1700s, like Edward Teach (“Blackbeard”), often hid in North Carolina. By knowing the coastline well, they could escape warships chasing them. The same situation favored local merchants trying to take out trade goods and bring in supplies during the Revolution. Those ships faced the British Royal Navy, the most powerful in the world, which set a blockade to catch them. Though it only had to guard the bigger inlets, those were far apart, and the British had few gunships small enough to navigate the shoals.
Their ships needed supplies, so as early as December 1775, they were raiding coastal farms and settlements. A rebel Council of Safety was running the state in place of the royal governor, then living on a gunship off modern Southport. It wrote, “‘We are endeavoring to take steps to protect our inlets from tenders (British supply boats) with which they have lately been infested.’” The rebel legislature, the Provincial Congress, agreed to purchase three ships and convert them for war, naming boards of commissioners for each.
The first, purchased a month later, was a brigantine or “brig”—ship with two masts and square sails—named for George Washington. North Carolina had a navy before it was a state!