Union forces led by Brigadier General Ambrose Burnside attack three thousand Confederate troops on tiny Roanoke Island, North Carolina, commanded by Colonel H.M. Shaw, on February 7, 1862.

Shaw's superior, Brigadier General Henry Wise, had contracted pneumonia on his return to the island after attempting unsuccessfully to obtain additional defenders.

President Jefferson Davis, lacking the men and materials to match the Union armies, decides to let Roanoke Island fall into Union hands without mounting a defense rather than let the Union know the true weakness of Southern forces.

The sixty sailing vessels used by the Union army constitute the largest amphibious troop landing in military history.

The seventy-five hundred Union troops, launched from Fort Monroe and supported by gunboats, quickly subdue the three Confederate forts.

After losing less than one hundred men, Shaw surrenders about twenty-five hundred soldiers and thirty-two guns.

The Union victory opens the entire North Carolina coast to the Federals.

Confederate Secretary of War Judah Benjamin comes under heavy criticism from other government leaders and the public as a result of the Southern defeat on Roanoake Island.

Jefferson Davis replaces him with George Randolph and names Benjamin secretary of state (a post he will hold until the surrender of the Confederacy.)