The Pollock and the Devereux families were among the largest landowners and slaveholders in North Carolina. This small lot of documents includes some papers of the Pollock family prior to as well as after the connection formed with the Devereux family by the 1790 marriage of Frances Pollock (1771-1849) and John Devereux, Sr. (1761-1844). (See family chart at end of the paper finding aid.) The Pollock family papers range in date from the time of Governor Thomas Pollock (1654-1722), and commence with the signed by Pollock for the government of North Carolina on November 25, 1712, and by King Tom Blount (c.1675-c.1739) and five chief men for the upper towns of the Tuscarora Indian nation. The papers are, for the most part, arranged chronologically by the family member to whom they pertain, and they are made up principally of patents for land, deed, in Halifax and Bertie counties and the Hawfield land in Orange (now Alamance) County. Papers relating to slaves owned by the family are to be found in the folders concerning the estates of George Pollock, 1839-1840, and John Devereux, 1844. The last will and testament of Frances (Pollock) Devereux (1771-1849) leaves several charitable bequests to the Presbyterian Church in the United States and its schools and foreign missions, to the Presbyterian Church, Raleigh, N.C., and to The Seaman's Friend Society, Norfolk, Virginia.

It provides, as well, for a continuing annual fund to help pay a teacher to give religious instruction to slaves on Roanoke River plantations. Only a few of her slaves were named in specific bequests and provisions of the will, and while the record of her estate indicates the value of her slaves to have been approximately $20,000, the file includes no list of them. The last folder in the box contains a few letters and miscellaneous documents dating between 1863 and 1892, relating for the most part to the law practice of Thomas Pollock Devereux, Jr. (1845-1913).

Even before the North Carolina seceded from the Union, the state began to prepare itself militarily by purchasing arms and ammunition and enlarging the staff of the state adjutant general. In the commissary department, the commissary general was given four assistants, and in the quartermaster department, the quartermaster general was given a number of assistants as well. John Devereux was appointed an assistant commissary of subsistence on May 1, 1861, and given the rank of captain. On September 20, 1861, Devereux was reassigned to duties as the state's chief quartermaster and later in December of that year was promoted to the rank of major. He held both the rank and position throughout the remainder of the war. At the close of the war, he was one of the delegation sent from Raleigh to meet General Sherman in order to arrange terms for surrender of the city.

Devereux's office as assistant commissary for subsistence was located at Weldon where he spent the summer of 1861 gathering and issuing provisions to feed the state's regiments in training camps at Weldon and Garysburg. His papers are very incomplete, being stronger for the months of May and June than for the third quarter of the year. It may be that some of the papers have been removed and put into the

Upon his appointment as chief quartermaster, Devereux was given assistants with specialized duties: Captain Moses A. Bledsoe, transportation (cavalry horses, forage, mules, wagons, harness); Captain Abraham Myers, supplies (camp and garrison equipage such as tents of all sorts, knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, cooking and eating utensils, small tools such as axes, picks, shovels, spades); Captain I. W. Garrett and Major Clement Dowd, clothing manufacture (hats, coats, pants, shirts, socks, undergarments, woolen and cotton jeans cloth, thread, buttons, needles).

Devereux had two special agents for the purchase of cotton - Captain William H. Oliver in the eastern part of the state, and Captain James Sloan in the central part. The two special agents purchased ginned and baled cotton and sent it either to the Saxapahaw mills to be made into cloth, or to Wilmington to be run out through the U.S. blockade to England and sold in order to purchase medicine and medical supplies, spirits, coffee, grey cloth, flannels, army cloth, blankets, boots, leather, and so forth that could hardly be obtained in the Confederacy.

Devereux made quarterly reports using standardized forms called abstracts, each having a distinctive letter to designate the nature of the report. For every expenditure and every receipt or disbursement within the various categories, Devereux was expected to have supporting vouchers so that his accounts could be audited. Despite the fact that Devereux was scrupulous in his record keeping, some vouchers are not present with their abstracts. More than that, abstracts and vouchers are lacking either in some quarters, or for entire quarters, or for entire years. During the biennium of 1920-1922 a large part of Devereux's papers were removed and put into the Military Collection. Some years later the papers of Thomas D. Hogg, chief commissary, and briefly, ordnance officer, were similarly treated. This resulted in an intermingling of some of the Devereux Papers with the Hogg Papers in which quartermaster, commissary, and ordnance are indiscriminately commingled. The following files are no longer to be found in the John Devereux Papers but are, presumably, to be found in the Military Collection: 1862 Third Quarter; 1863 Second Quarter; 1863 Fourth Quarter; 1864-1865 All Quarters.

James Nicolson Edmondston (1831-1896) was brother to Patrick M. Edmondston, husband of John Devereux's sister Catherine. The family arranged in October, 1861, to get James Edmondston an appointment, with the rank of captain, in Devereux's quartermaster operation. In May, 1862, he received an appointment to the staff of the C.S.A quartermaster general with rank of major and was assigned duties as assistant quartermaster for Daniel's Brigade which was then stationed at Drewry's Bluff, Virginia. In January, 1863, the brigade was dispatched first to Goldsboro then to Kinston, N.C., to take part in Gen. D. H. Hill's effort to recapture the towns of New Bern and Washington from the Yankees. The brigade was ordered back to Virginia in May, 1863, preparatory to the Gettysburg Campaign, on which Edmondston accompanied the brigade as quartermaster. He remained assigned to Daniel's Brigade until May, 1864, though it is unclear to what extent he was able to perform duties as brigade quartermaster after September, 1863. He entered the hospital at Richmond at the beginning of December, 1863, and did not return to duty with the brigade until sometime in February, 1864. In May he was reassigned to duties in the department of the C.S.A. inspector general of transportation. Edmondston spent the remainder of the war headquartered at Greensboro, N.C., as C.S.A. inspector of field transportation, holding the chief power of impressment of horses and mules in the state for the Confederate Army.

Edmondston's records as quartermaster to Daniel's Brigade appear to be reasonably complete for the period he is known to have executed the duties of the office personally. It is presumed that another officer served as brigade quartermaster after September, 1864 and that Edmondston put his retained copies of reports and their supporting vouchers into the hands of Devereux for safekeeping. There is no connection between the reports of Edmondston and those of Devereux. Though Edmondston was concerned with the supplying of a brigade and not the troops of a state, his reports, too, are in the standard form of lettered abstracts with supporting vouchers.

These include records for some regiments that were constituent elements of Daniel's Brigade and some that were not. The muster and pay rolls are, rather, for regiments paid at Drewry's Bluff, Va., or Kinston and Goldsboro, N.C., by Edmondston as a C.S.A. assistant quartermaster acting for the C.S.A. pay department. When regiments paid were mustered for pay purposes, they were mustered by company and rolls were made out and certified by the mustering officer. When each soldier was paid, the amount of pay was entered on the roll, and the soldier signed the roll as he received his pay.