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www.creativecockades.com Ships, Tar and Cockades By the year 1700 Britain and its European suppliers were running out of pine forests. This was a bi
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 A replica of the Susan Constant, a wooden ship used to transport the first colonists to Jamestown |
Ships, Tar and Cockades
By the year 1700 Britain and its European suppliers were running out of pine forests. This was a big deal because Britain was fighting a lot of naval battles around the world and naval ships were built from pine trees.
What do to? Well, turns out that Britain had some handy humongous pine forests in her American colonies. Now to convince those colonists that harvesting pine was worth the effort.
So in 1705, Parliament passed a law requiring the British Navy to pay top prices for tar, pitch, turpentine, rosin, hemp, and masts from British colonies. Thus the North Carolina pine industry was born. |
The Pine Forests of the Past
Eight types of pine trees are indigenous to North Carolina. Before Reconstruction demolished them in the 1870s, tremendous pine forests covered the Carolinas and Georgia. Natural forest fires kept the underbrush down and helped the pines grown and reproduce.
John Muir in 1867 described the forests. “In ‘pine barrens’ most of the day. Low, level, sandy tracts; the pines wide apart; the sunny spaces between full of beautiful abounding grasses, liatris, long, wand-like solidago (goldenrod), saw palmettos, etc., covering the ground in garden style. Here I sauntered in delightful freedom, meeting none of the cat-clawed vines, or shrubs, of the alluvial bottoms.”
North Carolina accepted the challenge of exporting pine products and by the 1770s was responsible for 70% of the tar exported from North America and 50% of the turpentine. Naval stores became the colony’s most important industry.
And somewhere along the line, North Carolina became known as the "Tar Heel State." |
The Tar Heel State
There are lots of fun, legendary stories of where the term "Tar Heel" originated. One comes from the Revolutionary War. Supposedly British General Cornwallis's troops were fording what is now known as the Tar River when they discovered that tar had been dumped into the stream to slow down the soldiers. When they finally got across, their feet were black with tar. So the soldiers observed that anyone who waded through North Carolina rivers would acquire "tar heels."
By the time of the Civil War, the term seemed to be well understood and became the source of a common joke. It went like this:
"Got any tar?"
"No, Jeff Davis has bought it all."
"What for?"
"To put on you fellows' heels to make you stick."
This was addressed to anyone, particularly from North Carolina, who was seen as lacking in courage or gumption. But North Carolinians developed their own smart alecky answers to it. Once after the 4th Texas Infantry lost its flag at Sharpsburg, they were passing by the 6th North Carolina and the Texans called out, "Tar Heels!"
The reply shot back was, "If'n you had had some tar on your heels, you would have brought your flag back from Sharpsburg!" |
 Henry Speck Harris, a North Carolina soldier, wearing a cockade |
Pine Cockades
So it's only natural with all this pine tree history that North Carolinians should include pines in their badges of honor.
The Baton Rouge Daily Advocate reported that, "The Wilmington (N. C.) Light Infantry have adopted for a pompon a natural pine burr, which, in the case of the officers, is gilded, and for privates, is varnished."
Thomas Fanning Wood, a young medical student in charge of the Committee of Safety in Wilmington, notes in his journal, "The Minute Men were organized as far back as Nov. of 1860, and were conspicuous on the streets with their badges of ribbon with a pine-bur rosette."
Another source mentions pinecones in describing North Carolina cockades. "Patriotic individuals were sporting secession badges on their lapels and bonnets. Described as folded blue ribbons, some badges were red, white, and blue ribbons. Others wore a flower posy called a Southern badge, which consisted of a cluster of hyacinths and arborvitae tied with red/white/blue ribbons. Other men preferred a rosette of pinecones. Both men and women wore blue cockades during secession in Rockingham County, N.C." |
 Confederate Veterans at the 1913 Gettysburg Reunion |
General Lee Said It
My favorite story of the "Tar Heel" name is told in this source:
"During the late unhappy war between the States it was sometimes called the 'Tar-heel State,' because tar was made in the State, and because in battle the soldiers of North Carolina stuck to their bloody work as if they had tar on their heels, and when General Lee said, 'God bless the Tar-heel boys,' they took the name."
This may not be entirely legendary as an 1864 letter from Colonel Joseph Engelhard wrote of the Battle of Ream's Station, "It was a 'Tar Heel' fight, and ... we got Gen'l Lee to thanking God, which you know means something brilliant." |
Based on one of the quotes above, I decided to combine a red, white and blue rosette with pine cones to create a North Carolina Secession Cockade! You can purchase here. |
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Thanks for reading... see you next week!
Regards,
~Heather Sheen
Owner, Creative Cockades |
Every Cockade Has A Story To Tell! |
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