From the records of the Freedmen’s Savings Bank, New Bern branch:

Sixteen year-old John Barnes, newly arrived in New Bern from Wilson County, opened an account at the Freedmen’s Bank. His registration card speaks to a fractured family life. He had never been told his father’s name; his mother Nancy, uncle Gray and siblings Alfred and Lizzie were dead. I have been unable to identify with certainty any record of his grandmother Spicey Barnes‘ residence in “Wilson Town.”

Freedman’s Bank Records, 1865-1871 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com.