Yankee Raids in North Carolina––Arrest of Citizens––Stampede of Negroes.
From the Richmond Enquirer, July 31st.
During the past three or four weeks those counties in North Carolina bordering upon the Virginia lines of the Federal army have been subjected to a series of the most dastardly and vindictive guerrilla raids that have yet characterized the war in that quarter. The counties of Pasquotank, Camden, Currituck, and Gates have suffered the most severely from arrests of many of their principle citizens, robberies and burnings of property, and the incitement of negroes to revolt and escape.
A gentleman who arrived in this city on yesterday, from that section of North Carolina, informs us that in the county of Gates the following prominent citizens were arrested by a band of Hessian cavalry last week, and carried to Suffolk:––Messrs. THOS. A. JORDAN, JAS. FREEMAN, JAS. WIGGINS, WM. BEEMAN, JAS. SPARKMAN, THOS. SPARKMAN, RICHARD MANNING, THOS. COSTEN and WM. COSTEN. The only plea upon which they were arrested was that they were Secessionists.
About two weeks ago ninety-four slaves and a party of free negroes, through the medium of Yankee inducement, stampeded from the upper part of the Pasquotank and fled into the Dismal Swamp. They comprised whole families, old and young, male and female. One of the free negroes––who was, doubtless, dictator of the whole party––was an "aristocrat" at home and worth some four or five thousand dollars. A number of the inhabitants of the county immediately followed in pursuit, and recovered fifty or sixty of the slaves, and found a considerable quantity of ammunition in their camp.
"Very Late From the South," Philadelphia (PA) Inquirer, August 7, 1862, p. 2.