Perhaps the best way to describe this roster is by explaining what it is not. As hard as I tried to make it so, I cannot claim it is a comprehensive list of all North Carolinians who served the Confederacy on, or near, the water. It is this author's humble attempt to document a group of men all too often under appreciated and superficially treated by historians of the conflict. North Carolina men and boys serving in the land forces were well documented by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources' on-going multi-volume series North Carolina Troops, 1861 - 1865: A Roster. The fact that North Carolina naval personnel had no such annotated roster was sufficient justification for me to develop such a roster. It is my hope that by preserving and publishing the names and such service information as could be found that the Tar Heels who served the Confederate naval service may receive the recognition they so richly deserve.