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WBM march 2012
§ §§ §§ §§ §§ §§ §§ §§ §§ § Harriss, with his brother, Samuel,
managed the business until the Civil
War began. Harriss served with the
Wilmington Light Infantry at Fort
Caswell and Fort Fisher, where he
helped engineer construction. As
a lieutenant in the Third North
Carolina Regiment, he commanded
his company during the Seven Days
Battles around Richmond, in 1862.
Then he fought in the Battle of
Sharpsburg, where he was commissioned
captain, before returning to
Fort Fisher. Harriss was on duty
near Richmond when the war ended.
Dressed in pitiful looking pants, he
spent the only money he had — a
§§ §§ §§ §§ §§ §§ §§ §§ §§ § §Captain William Harriss Northrop, CSA
Courtesy of John Murchison.
quarter — to buy enough cloth to
fashion himself a shirt. He then
walked back to Brunswick County,
where he boarded the ferry to return
to Wilmington’s Market Street dock,
and a changed world.
After the war, the lumber business
was kind to Harriss Northrop, and
