 During the Civil War, the Wilmington-to-Raleigh stretch of the railroad would be vital to the Confederate war effort; supplies shipped into Wilmington would be moved by rail through Raleigh to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.During the antebellum period, North Carolina was an overwhelmingly rural state, even by Southern standards.In 1860, only one North Carolina town, the port city of Wilmington, had a population of more than 10,000.