Union Major General John J. Peck complained about the quality of the North Carolina recruits: "Some of these officers...enlist all the men they can possibly persuade, without the slightest regard to their capacity, either mental or physical.

"[2] Peck was also concerned about "virtual impressment and fraudulent enlistment," in the 1st & 2nd North Carolina Regiments, including the recruitment of underage and over-age soldiers.

Pearson generally granted writs of habeas corpus to North Carolina conscripts and deserters who appealed to the court.

[4] The captured men had been members of North Carolina Partisan Ranger companies or railroad guard units, and not in regular Confederate Army service.

[2] These local irregular units were consolidated in October 1863 into the 66th Regiment North Carolina State Troops.

Members of the companies being consolidated were offered the choice of voluntarily joining the 66th or being subject to Confederate conscription, which would have placed them either in the 66th or another regiment.

They were sent to POW camps at Richmond, Virginia, and later Andersonville, Georgia, where Union prisoners suffered from outbreaks of disease in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.

They would have been useless to General Butler, and I have placed them all in the Sub-District of Beaufort, where, as they feel secure, they will, I hope, become reliable.