North Carolina had the distinction of being the only seceding state where the question of secession was put to a popular vote, and the proposition was rejected. Many, many Tarheels opposed secession.
When Federal troops landed and siezed most of the Carolina coast, many North Carolinians enlisted in the U. S. Army.
Pickett captured a number of federal troops at New Bern. He declared that all North Carolinians in USA uniforms were deserters; he hanged (if memory serves) on the order of 26.
Knowing he would face trial, he fled the country after 1865. The general exhaustion of war finally led several ex-union officers to interdcede for him and suggest a (completely unjustified) amnesty.
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ncuv/collins1.htm
“During the latter quarter of 1863 and early 1864, the Second North Carolina Union Volunteer Regiment began to take shape under the leadership of Captain Charles Henry Foster. The regiment was essentially a failure. It’s soldiers cared less about Unionism and Emancipation than the earlier more politically motivated recruits of the First North Carolina. Many of its men were ex-Confederates who were deserting in increasing numbers after the Southern defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in mid-1863. These men had much to fear if captured since return to their former units meant certain death. The Second North Carolina also attracted scores of poor and destitute North Carolinians who were attracted to the service by an increase in the enlistment bonus from one to three hundred dollars in December of 1863. These men constantly petitioned/begged their officers to carry out expeditions behind enemy lines to retrieve wives and children. The poor and their families became a constant concern and worry to Federal military and civil officials. Recruiters heatedly competed for enlistees. Threats were used and aged men and young boys, and persons too ill and disabled were accepted and taken into the regiment. Such tactics brought a severe rebuke from General John Peck, in command at New Bern.
The decline of the Second North Carolina began in February 1864 during an offensive against New Bern by Confederate forces under Generals George Pickett and Robert Hoke. Company F, stationed on outpost duty at Beech Grove eight miles outside of New Bern, found itself trapped behind enemy lines. Their pleas to the New York officer in command to allow them to lead the outpost to safety were ignored until too late. Fifty-three members of the company were taken prisoner. Twenty-seven of these were former Confederates who had deserted from the Southern army. Court martials were held and twenty-two were publicly hanged within view of the citizens of Kinston. Within two months, all but a handful of the remaining fifty-three died slower deaths in prison camps at Richmond and Andersonville.
The executions caused shock-waves in the Union army, and struck fear in the hearts of the North Carolina regiments. Their greatest apprehension about being captured appeared to be confirmed — and worse, death by hanging instead of firing squad. Colonel Edward Ripley reported the utter demoralization of the North Carolina soldiers. “Indeed, they are already looking to the swamps for the protection they have so far failed of getting from our government... I believe they will inevitably, in case of a fight, become panic-stricken and have a bad effect on the rest of this slim command.” The men were further distracted when their regimental commander, now Lieutenant Colonel Charles Foster, a man who was well-loved by his men, but not by other Northern officers, was dismissed from the service.
In March, only six weeks after the hangings in Kinston, disaster struck again. General Hoke captured Plymouth on April 20 following a three-day battle. Most of companies B and E of the Second North Carolina regiment were taken prisoner. The latter company had been ordered to Beaufort the previous month and might have been saved. The order was reversed through the pleading of Captain Calvin Haggard of Bertie County who had argued that “we are as safe here as anywhere in Union lines.” Remembering the fate of Company F in Kinston, North Carolina soldiers sought refuge any way possible. Private Joseph Pritchard removed the identification from a dead New Yorker and attempted to pass himself off as a Northern soldier. General ... Wessells, in command at Plymouth, reported that “during the siege and in the night a considerable number of North Carolina soldiers ... left their companies without authority, escaping in canoes, being picked up . . by our boats in the sound.” Their conduct led to a general loss of confidence in the North Carolina Buffalo regiments.
General I. N. Palmer wrote to his superior in Fort Monroe that General Peck “not only has no confidence in them, but that he fears they will desert to the enemy.” Palmer himself had little faith in the North Carolinians and their steadfastness in the face a very superior force.
The loss at Plymouth led to another disgraceful incident involving the North Carolina soldiers. On the same day as the surrender at Plymouth, General Palmer ordered the evacuation of Little Washington and the removal of the North Carolina companies to New Bern. “Not a particle of property was to be destroyed,” he said in his order, “as the move was not being made in the face of the enemy.” Despite this, the Northern occupation troops went on a three day rampage that began at the quartermaster’s store of the First North Carolina. The Buffaloes of Company L joined Northern soldiers and sailors, Negroes, and in some instances citizens. Gangs of men patrolled the city, breaking into houses and wantonly destroying everything that they could not carry away. Officers were ignored, and the pillaging ended only when there was nothing left to plunder. To make matters worse, two fires, one purposely set to destroy the bridge, spread and burned much of the town. General Palmer was outraged, calling his own men an “army of vandals,” who were “not soldiers, but thieves and scoundrels. “
It was very common for southern officers to murder US soldiers of African descent, or the officers assigned to command US colored troops. Pickett murdering US soldiers doesn’t make him unique, I am afraid.