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According to tradition, the hole in the beams of the freight station was struck during ?????'s attack.
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On October 3, 1863, the Union gunboat ???????, constantly under fire from sharpshooters on Crumpler's Bluff, fired shot and shell in all directions as she worked her way around the narrow bend at the bluff toward Franklin. The Federals were surprsed to see black riflemen among the Confederates.
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Col. J. K. Marshall, 52nd North Carolina Infantry. Marshall commanded the Confederates during the action at Crumpler's Bluff.
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LCDR Charles W. ?????, commander of the Union naval flotilla that ran Crumpler's Bluff to attack Franklin on October 3, 1862.
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Captain Louis H. Webb, 13th Battalion, North Carolina Artillery. Stationed on the Blackwater Line during the harsh winter of 1862 - 1863m his gun crews were "half-fed, nearly naked & shoeless." Webb awoke one morning with "hair & beard heavy with ice, from congealed breath."
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The Chowan and Blackwater rivers were Lee's lifeline. At least 30 skirmishes were fought in the no man's land between Franklin and Suffolk.
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Wanting to earn their freedom, at least 100 black Southamptonites, most of them escaped slaves, joined the Union army during 1864 and 1865.
 
During the first three years of the War Between the States, the Franklin railhead was the terminus of the Blackwater - Chowan corridor. The Confederate commissary used this route to deliver the millions of pounds of goods from eastern North Carolina and Virginia that kept General E. Lee's army in the field. The headquarters of the Blackwater Line, which protected Lee's supply line and guarded Richmond's southeastern flank, was here. In the spring of 1863 Major General James Longstreet launched the Suffolk Campaign from Franklin and South Quary. After the "action at Crumpler's Bluff," on October 3, 1862m in which Union gunboats bombarded the town, most of Franklin's civilians fled, leaving the village in the hands of Confederate soldiers. Labor and food shortages beset those who remained. In June 1864 the Federals crossed the James River and flanked the Blackwater Line. Richmond reduced its forces near Franklin, opening the adjacent countryside to frequent Yankee raids. Soon after Lee's surrender at Appomattox in April 1865 Franklin's citizens returned to an occupied, destitute hamlet. Its assets in slaves and money were wiped out. Its bridges and railroad were destroyed and its wharves and warehouses were in decay.
"Those were days full of sorrow and anxiety from morning till night, and through the night the heavy roaring of cannon like thunder and the whole earth full of smoke, and everything in and unsettled condition. One did not feel like work, and where we were located we could not raise a crop, as we were in the border line... my father's farm, and the lame, sick, ????, and ????, and all those who did not want to go to the front were neighbors; no hungry people are. Pig after pig disappeared until there were none left and the same with chickens, turkeys, calves, and lambs, and last of all the beehives."
Jenny Camp Norfleet
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