Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the David Miller Carter Papers, #143, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received prior to 1940. Additional material received from Mrs. Laura Schaeffer Schnorrenberg of Asheville, N.C., May 1964; and transferred from the Schnorrenberg Family Papers, #4002, January 1977.

Additional Descriptive Resources

A copy of the original finding aid for this collection is filed in folder 1a.

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal Company.
• Bank of Washington (Washington, D.C.)
• Banks and banking--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Canals--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Carter, David Miller, 1830-1879.
• Carter, Harriet Armistead Ryan Benbury, 1833-1877.
• Carter, Laura Armistead, d. 1935.
• Carter, Sarah Lindsay.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Recruiting, enlistment, etc.
• Courts-martial and courts of inquiry--Confederate States of America.
• Lawyers--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• North Carolina--Politics and government--1775-1865.
• Slave bills of sale--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Slaveholders--North Carolina.
• Slavery--United States--History.
• Washington (N.C.)--Economic conditions.
• Women--North Carolina--Social life and customs.

• David Carter Papers (#142); Benbury and Haywood Family Papers (#2565); and Theodore F. Davidson Papers (#893).

David Miller Carter (1830-1879) was a lawyer and landowner of eastern North Carolina; a Confederate colonel and military judge; a legislator, 1862-1865; and a resident of Washington, N.C., until he moved to Raleigh in 1874. Carter was the son of David Carter and Sarah Lindsay Spencer Carter of Hyde County, N.C. He was educated at the University of North Carolina, graduating in 1851. He practiced law in Washington, N.C., as the partner of Richard Spaight Donnell prior to the Civil War and after the war as the partner of Edward Jenner Warren.

Carter served in the Civil War as captain, later lieutenant colonel, in the 4th North Carolina Infantry Regiment. In June 1863 he was appointed provost marshal of the 2nd Corps, commanded by Richard S. Ewell, serving also as judge of the military court attached to that corps, and in July 1863 he was commissioned a colonel in the cavalry and assigned to serve as the presiding judge of the military court attached to the 3rd Corps, commanded by A. P. Hill. He resigned in August 1864 on the grounds of his membership in the North Carolina General Assembly.

Carter served as a member of the North Carolina House of Commons from Beaufort County in the legislatures of 1862-1863 and 1864-1865. He did not hold political office thereafter but for several years was interested in politics and corresponded with political leaders. In the years 1865-1867 his correspondents were chiefly Republicans, with whom he was evidently in sympathy, but he opposed Radical Reconstruction and the calling of the North Carolina constitutional convention of 1868 and broke with Republicans in late 1867. His political correspondence thereafter was chiefly with Democrats and Liberal Republicans. In 1872 he ran for United States Congress against the Republican incumbent, Clinton L. Cobb, of Pasquotank County, who won. Carter's active participation in politics seems to have ceased after this campaign.

Carter's first wife was Isabella Perry, daughter of David B. Perry of Rosedale, near Washington, N.C. She died in mid-1866 and in May 1869 he married Harriet Armistead Ryan Benbury, widow of John A. Benbury of Albania, N.C. She was the daughter of Emily Baker Turner and Joseph Jordan Ryan and the step-daughter of David Outlaw and grew up in the Outlaw home in Windsor, N.C.

Carter and his wife Isabella had three children, Sarah Lindsay, David Miller Junior, and one who died as an infant. The Benburys had a daughter Emily and an infant boy who died. Carter and Harriet had three daughters, Harriet, who died as an infant; Laura Lindsay; and Frances Spencer. Emily Benbury married Dr. Hubert Haywood and lived in Raleigh. David M. Carter Junior married Ella Mann and lived in Hyde County and later in Washington, N.C. Sarah L. Carter married Theodore F. Davidson of Asheville, N.C., in December 1893. Frances Spencer Carter married Martin Wilhelm Schaeffer of Dresden, Germany, in 1899.

The collection is chiefly personal correspondence and other items related to David Miller Carter's legal practice, financial and business interests, land holdings, and military service. There are also papers and correspondence of Carter's wife, Harriett Armistead Ryan Benbury Carter, and his daughters, Sarah Lindsay Carter and Laura Armistead Carter. Antebellum papers are related to ownership of land and property including enslaved persons. Civil War items relate to Carter's activities as military judge and other matters. After the war, many of the items relate to North Carolina and national politics, including Carter's relationship with both the Republican and Democratic parties and his unsuccessful 1878 congressional bid. Scattered papers deal with the Bank of Washington, the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal Company, and a wide variety of affairs in North Carolina.

• Oversize papers (X-OPF-143/1)