President Abraham Lincoln was shocked by North Carolina’s decision, for the state had previously refused to even hold a secession convention. Like its counterparts in the upper South, it had held out for compromise with the North. When a group of Southern sympathizers seized Forts Caswell and Johnston before the war began, Governor John Ellis cooperated by returning the forts to the Federal government.

Unfortunately, the longer North Carolina waited, the more Lincoln misinterpreted the state’s inaction as a show of solid Union support. Once the gunfire started at Fort Sumter, however, there was no longer a margin for misunderstanding.

According to one prominent North Carolina resident, this confrontation left North Carolina feeling “prostrated” by the Union…and compelled to “resist until we repel our invaders or die.”

With swift dispatch, the state took back the forts they had restored to Union control. Ellis swore his support to the Confederacy…and North Carolina was now officially an enemy to the North.

Mort Künstler painted this portrait of Col. Zebulon Vance, who later became Governor, in front of the North Carolina flag.