The Barrier Islands that make up the Outer Banks were a focus of activity in the Civil War from the start. Although active warfare lasted only a brief time before the Banks fell to Union forces, the effects of the battles and wartime occupation would take decades of recovery.

Drawing heavily from unpublished manuscripts and memoirs, contemporary newspapers and regimental histories, official records and personal journals of soldiers and civilians, Fred M. Mallison has reached beyond a mere history of the battles that shattered the customary quiet of the islands and the port towns sheltered by them.

This account considers the livelihood of the "Bankers" and their way of life in the decades before the war; it traces the economic changes that were already touching the islands, and examines how life was transformed during and after the devastating war.