In the spring of 1847, John Sykes, along with many of his neighbors, volunteered for the Army, and left to fight in Mexico. In the months that followed he heard disquieting rumors that his wife was being unfaithful. When he returned in August of 1848 he discovered that she was "far advanced in a state of pregnancy." Even more humiliating, he said, she soon gave birth to a child "evidently begotten by some slave or free black person." Sykes seeks a divorce.
Result: Granted.
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
