NORTH CAROLINA TIMES, New Berne, June 22, 1864  

* Very rare Union occupation publication
* New Bern, North Carolina on necessity paper 
* Former Southern Confederate stronghold

This is a Union occupation newspaper, as New Bern fell to the Yankee forces under General Burnside on March 14, 1862. This is the volume 1, number 44 issue. Our records indicate this is the first of this title we have offered from during the war.
The most intriguing aspect of this issue is not the content, but the paper upon which it is printed. The newsprint is a comparatively thick-stock, brownish-color newsprint, more like wrapping paper than typical newsprint. At various points in the war, regular newsprint was difficult to find, so publishers used whatever they could find to print the day's edition.
Four pages, never bound nor trimmed, wide margins, a portion of the front page is foxed, several folds with small holes at a few fold junctures, generally in nice condition.

Background: Printed in Union-occupied New Bern, North Carolina, on improvised, coarse brown wrapping paper during a height of wartime supply shortages, the June 22, 1864 edition (Vol. 1, No. 44) of the North Carolina Times serves as a primary source detailing military life and Federal administration in the occupied South. As an official Union occupation paper, its columns routinely contained localized Provost Marshal and general military orders, reports on ongoing coastal and inland skirmishes in North Carolina (such as cavalry scouts and engagements along the Neuse River near Jackson’s Mills), dispatches on major Northern campaigns like Grant’s siege of Petersburg and Sherman’s push toward Atlanta, and legal notices for Northern merchants operating under military permits. Designed both to boost the morale of stationed Union troops and to project Federal authority over local civilians, the issue blends wartime news dispatches, commercial advertisements catered to garrisoned soldiers, and pro-Union editorial commentary onto its unusually heavy, un-trimmed newsprint.