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Groundbreaking Ceremony Speeches
Our Speakers From The North Carolina Civil War & Reconstruction History Center Groundbreaking Ceremony in Fayetteville, NC on April 18, 2018. Chancellor James A. Anderson The Honorable Patricia Timmons Goodson Senator Tony Rand Commissioner Michael C. Boose Mayor...
NC Civil War and Reconstruction Groundbreaking Ceremony
North Caarolina Civil War & Reconstruction Groundbreaking Ceremony on April 18, 2018 at 824 Branson St., Fayetteville, NC...
NC Civil War History of the Fayetteville Arsenal Site
Earlier this year, we commissioned two local university students, one from FSU (Dorien Caldwell) and the other from UNC-Pembroke (Angel Garcia) to do a three-part video history of the Fayetteville Civil War Arsenal site. They did all the filming, research and...
Making history, one march at a time
Louis Leon is not, like many famous generals of the Civil War, a household name. That’s because he wasn’t one of them…
First Lieutenant Valentine Jackson Palmer, M.D., C.S.A.
Valentine Jackson Palmer, M.D., of Duncan Creek (Golden Valley), near Hollis, in Rutherford County, joined the Confederate States Army in 1862 as a first lieutenant of infantry. He was executive officer of Company F, 56th North Carolina Regiment, an infantry company....
Update on the History Center’s 2017 Progress
If things have seemed quiet at the History Center, there’s been a reason: We’ve been busy! Since we wrote you last year, we’ve raised more than $20 million in new, firm commitments…
Uniting a divided history
From the robust public discussion about North Carolina’s legacy of Civil War monuments, it’s clear that — a century and a half after its close — we’re still sorting out how to make sense of that war…
Sherrod Family Celebrates Home of Patriarch, a Former Slave
Built as a wood structure in 1886, the entire building has been encapsulated into brick and has had multiple additions over the years, but Leonard Paul Sherrod Jr., great-grandson of the builder, knows what’s underneath.
Sherrod and other family members are preparing for a grand reunion on Sept. 1-3 to be held at the Sherrod homestead.
“We are refurnishing, repairing, remodeling when necessary and getting it ready to be used as a venue for the upcoming September reunion,” said Sherrod, who was born in Wilson in 1933 and graduated from Charles H. Darden High School in 1952.
A picnic and a banquet are planned at the event, which Sherrod has titled “Exploring Our Family History.”
“There is so much history,” Sherrod said. “Not only is it family history, it is African-American history, and in some small portion, American history.”
Grey Little Brown (1831-1907)
Before he enlisted in the Civil War, Grey Little Brown was a farmer and teacher in Edgecombe County. After the war, he returned to farming and teaching.
He became a “certified teacher” in 1871 as the state began to set standards (see copy of certificate).
His interest in education established the first school in Edgecombe County. He also sent three of his daughters to college in Greensboro, N.C. (the State Normal and Industrial School, aka Woman’s College aka UNCG).
Robert Andrews Sellers (1847-1905)
(Source: Contributed by Paula F. Kermon) Robert Sellers' childhood is very sketchy, but according to his widow, his father died when Robert was a young child. When his mother remarried, his stepfather bonded him to a farmer. The 1850 Census for Brunswick County listed...
Almon Leonidas Fountain (1842-1907)
(Source: Contributed by Paula F. Kermon) When Almon was 18 and attending the Dow Eagles School in Edgecombe County, his 24 year old teacher Lorenzo Dow Eagles, closed the school and enlisted in the Civil War. On 8/31/1861, Eagles formed a company of boys/men at Sparta...
Thomas Davis Rice
(Source: contributed by William D. Kenerly) Thomas Davis Rice was my great grandfather. He enlisted and was a private in the Civil War. After the War, he signed the Oath of Allegiance to the United States in Salisbury. He became a farmer and businessman in the...
Brothers Bill and Daniel Cole, Confederate soldiers
William Richard "Bill" Cole and Daniel Francis Cole were uncles of my grandmother, Gertrude Elizabeth Thompson Croom (Mrs. William Cyrus Croom), of Sandy Bottom in Lenoir County. Both Bill and Daniel lived in the eastern part of Coffee County near Douglas, GA. They...
William Allen Croom and wife Ann Maria Jackson Croom
During the Civil War, Ann Maria (pronounced Mariah) and her husband lived at "the Margaret Croom Place" at Moss Hill in Lenoir County. Once, when the Yankees came through the area, Ann Maria was fixing supper, and one of the Yankees invited himself to eat with them....
Joel Elmore (Company A, 40th NC Troops) and the Ft. Fisher shark
Lieutenant D.A. Black was one of the "Carolina Boys" of Company K, 38th Regiment of the North Carolina Troops, under the command of Captain M. McR. McLauchlin. On May 3, 1862, Lieutenant D.A. Black wrote to a friend in North Carolina from his camp at Milford Station...
Peter Garner: The Hunter
Peter Garner, a native of southeastern Randolph County, was born about 1831. He was a son of Peter Garner Sr. and Elizabeth Morgan. Garner married Susannah Latham on February 26, 1857. She was a daughter of James Latham and Lucretia Garner. Peter and Susannah had four...
A Tale of Two Men
Corporal John Campell Bass was an ancestor on my mother’s side. He joined the war effort in 1864. On March 16, 1865, he fought at Averasboro, North Carolina. A few days later, in the battle of Bentonville, he was killed. In March 1865, Private Troy Eldridge fought in...
Six Sons Served and Six Survived
Blackledge Harper, my great-great-grandfather, was born on April 20, 1813. He was a farmer from Deep Run, North Carolina. His farm, in excess of a thousand acres, was worked primarily by family members, but when additional help was needed, he hired slaves from...
Where did all the treason trials go?
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless…
A summer of change, a long winter of resistance
As hopes and honeysuckle bloomed, a century and a half ago, forces were massing to ensure that the dreams of newly liberated slaves and their white supporters would never take root. At the federal level, slavery had been abolished by constitutional amendment. But...
Some Lived to Tell the Tale
(Source: Contributed by E.W. Smith) Of fifteen children who spent their childhood at the Harnett County house called Lebanon, eight soldier brothers served the Confederacy at one time or another while four surviving sisters did their best to keep track of them and...
Far From Home, at Home
(Source: Contributed by Gene Smith) “You would not feel at home tonight if you could step in and see our family circle so small, no one at home except Pa, Sarah, Janie, little Mary and myself,” Bettie Smith wistfully wrote to brother Curtis as spring stirred in 1864....
Barden [Bardin] Family Private Papers, 1822-1920
(Source: Contributed by Maude P. Smith) "The Barden [Bardin] family were planters who farmed in the Sampson and Duplin County area of Southeastern North Carolina before and after the Civil War. While this collection contains few items of correspondence, the contents...
Our Latest Newsletter!
March 2017 Dear Friends, The North Carolina Civil War History Center has been making great progress! In this newsletter are some of our recent and upcoming activities. We thank you for your continued support and, as always, we encourage you to contact us if you have...
A Woman’s Perspective: While the Men Were Fighting
(Source: Contributed by Ms. Julia Moody Britt) Mary Susan Morrow and David Vanhook died of typhoid fever within a week of each other, leaving four small children to be reared by the maternal grandparents, Ebenezer and Paletiere Clement Morrow. When Sarah Jane, the...
From Warrior to Renowned Artisan
(Source: Contributed by Roger H. Futrell) William Henry Hancock (1844-1923)[1] of Randolph County, North Carolina, was a Confederate veteran who worked as a potter in the eastern Piedmont between 1865 and 1900. Examples of his pottery are in the collections of The...
Annie Mae Adams Akins Shares her Mother’s Stories about The Aftermath of the War Between the States
The following is a transcript of a taped interview, recorded in 1985, with my mother, Annie Mae Adams Akins. She shared an account of General Sherman's troops coming through Willow Spring, North Carolina as told to her by her mother (my grandmother), Annie Eliza...
A Family Mystery: The Andrew Jackson Curtis Story
Submitted by: Jerry H. Padgett and Willis P. Whichard Andrew Jackson Curtis was the first son of Madison and Sarah Curtis and the brother of our great-grandmother, Julia. He was the second child in a family of nine surviving children when the war started. In the fall...
Andrew, Joseph, and Howell Curtis: Three Brothers Who Fought for Southern Independence
Submitted by: Willis Whichard, Jerry Padgett, James Padgett, Obie Whichard, and Bud Padg The 1840 Census lists Madison and Sara Curtis as Cherokee County residents. They were among the earliest white families to move to Cherokee Nation lands in an area that would...
The Story of the Colemans: “I Can’t Think of You All but What I Am Most Ready to Cry”
Submitted by: Willis Whichard, Jerry Padgett, Bud Padgett, Obie Whichard, and James Padg James and Julia Coleman moved to Cherokee County, North Carolina before 1850 along with seven children: William, Frances, Joe, Hugh, Mary, George, and David. They had five more...
Captured at Deep Creek
Asaph Wilson Sherrill of Jackson County was a private in Thomas’ Legion. He was captured by Union soldiers at the Battle of Deep Creek. He was taken to Knoxville, Tennessee, then to Nashville, and finally, to a prison camp in Delaware. He died of dysentery and was...
A Glimpse into the Life of a Confederate Soldier Based on his Letters Home
Built as a wood structure in 1886, the entire building has been encapsulated into brick and has had multiple additions over the years, but Leonard Paul Sherrod Jr., great-grandson of the builder, knows what’s underneath.
Sherrod and other family members are preparing for a grand reunion on Sept. 1-3 to be held at the Sherrod homestead.
“We are refurnishing, repairing, remodeling when necessary and getting it ready to be used as a venue for the upcoming September reunion,” said Sherrod, who was born in Wilson in 1933 and graduated from Charles H. Darden High School in 1952.
A picnic and a banquet are planned at the event, which Sherrod has titled “Exploring Our Family History.”
“There is so much history,” Sherrod said. “Not only is it family history, it is African-American history, and in some small portion, American history.”
The Padgett Brothers: Only One Came Home
Submitted by: Willis P. Whichard, Jerry H. Padgett, James L. Padgett, and Obie G. Whicha In the 1850s, Sidney and Elijah Padgett migrated to Cherokee County from Rutherford County, North Carolina with their parents, John and Rachel Padgett, and six siblings: Salina,...
Lieutenant D. A. Black’s Letter Reveals the Concerns of a Dedicated Soldier
Built as a wood structure in 1886, the entire building has been encapsulated into brick and has had multiple additions over the years, but Leonard Paul Sherrod Jr., great-grandson of the builder, knows what’s underneath.
Sherrod and other family members are preparing for a grand reunion on Sept. 1-3 to be held at the Sherrod homestead.
“We are refurnishing, repairing, remodeling when necessary and getting it ready to be used as a venue for the upcoming September reunion,” said Sherrod, who was born in Wilson in 1933 and graduated from Charles H. Darden High School in 1952.
A picnic and a banquet are planned at the event, which Sherrod has titled “Exploring Our Family History.”
“There is so much history,” Sherrod said. “Not only is it family history, it is African-American history, and in some small portion, American history.”
Reconstruction: the insurgency that followed the war
This is the sesquicentennial of Reconstruction, an ugly but historically important period in which the Union, having won a long and ghastly Civil War, lost the peace to the same set of antagonists. That realization arrived in different places at different times....
The Rogers: Three Cherokee County Men Fight for the Confederacy
Submitted by: Willis Whichard, Jerry Padgett, James Padgett, Obie Whichard, and Bud Pa Robert, William, and John Rogers grew up in a part of Cherokee County known as Tomotla with their parents, John and Margaret Penland Rogers, and their seven siblings: Adeline,...
A Tribute to a Christopher Gilbert Ray, One of the ‘Carolina Boys’
Born in 1841, Christopher Gilbert Ray was the son of Neill and Ann (Ray) Ray. During the Civil War, Gilbert enlisted in the Confederate Army, serving as one of the ‘Carolina Boys’ of Company K, 38th Regiment, North Carolina Troops. Gilbert died “of disease” on...
William Penn Wood: Wounded and Left to Die
William Penn Wood was born in Asheboro, North Carolina on May 2, 1843. Wood was a son of Penuel and Calista Birkhead Wood. His youth was spent in Randolph County where he attended public schools from 1850 until 1861. As a teenager, he worked as a clerk in a general...
One of the Yadkin Boys
George Washington Blakely was born in 1838 and, on June 18, 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate Army, serving in the group known as “Yadkin Boys,” Company F, 28th Regiment, NC Troops. He survived the War, but was wounded several times and lost part of one of his...
Two Gillis Men were “Detailed to work at C.S. Arsenal at Fayetteville, N.C.”
Two men, David W. Gillis and John A. Gillis, both from an area of Cumberland County that became Hoke County, enlisted in the Confederate Army to serve for the duration of the war on March 1, 1862 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. They were Privates in Captain Joseph B...
‘Aunt’ Martha Graham: Born a Slave in Cumberland County
According to an undated article from The Fayetteville Observer, at the time of its publication (circa mid to late 1970s), 117-year-old ‘Aunt’ Martha Graham was Cumberland County’s oldest resident. ‘Aunt’ Martha “live[d] with her [then] 97-year-old daughter, Mrs....
Neill Angus Ray: A Survivor of Point Lookout Prison Camp
On June 1, 1864, seventeen-and-a-half-year-old Neill Angus Ray enlisted in the Confederate Army at Wilmington, North Carolina. According to war records, Ray was five-feet-eight-inches tall and had a fair complexion, hazel eyes, and dark brown hair. Ray was first...
Whiteside Mountain’s Civil War Soldier’s Cave
Soldiers who left the Confederate Army to return home were called deserters or “Outliers” because they had to “lie out” from their homes to avoid detection. If caught by the Confederate Home Guard, they could be executed for their desertion or, more often, escorted...
Wash Zachary’s Late Night Visit to the Home of Alfred and Jane Zachary
According to the family of Cashiers’ resident Mary Baumgarner Bryson, great-granddaughter of Alfred and Jane Zachary, the following story was passed down through the generations: On a dark, cold winter's night in 1864, Alexander Washington “Wash” Zachary tapped on the...
A Mother Takes a Stand against Col. George Washington Kirk
In the 1920s, Annie Zachary Gazaway spoke at a United Daughters of the Confederacy meeting in South Carolina. Gazaway described an event that took place involving her mother, Anne Eliza Jones Zachary, who was the wife of Jonathan Zachary, the first Postmaster of...
Francis Marion Moody: A Union Army Recruiter from Jackson County
Francis Marion Moody, born in 1840, was the son of Martin Liggett Moody and Lucinda Nicholson Moody. He had three brothers: Daniel Van Buren Moody [1838-1910], Bennett Jasper Moody [1846-1922] and Franklin Lafayette Moody [1849-1899]. Moody was named after the...
“Don’t Kill Him! He was My Commander in the Mexican War.”
In 1814, John Haywood Alley, Jr. was born in Rutherford County. In 1837, as a First Lieutenant in the U. S. Cavalry, Alley was sent to Whiteside Cove, North Carolina, to enforce the government-ordered evacuation of the Cherokee and guide their trip west. After the...
Don’t Allow Any Republicans to Be Buried in My Burying Ground
The two oldest cemeteries in Cashiers are called the Lower Zachary Cemetery and the Upper Zachary Cemetery. They are located on the same road, not very far apart. The oldest cemetery is the Lower Zachary Cemetery, with the first burial dating to the 1860s. Keven...
A Teenager Guided Union Officers through the Mountains of Western North Carolina
Union Capt. Mark M. Bassett, a member of Company E, 53rd Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, had been captured by the Confederates during the siege of Vicksburg in the summer of 1863. Before the end of July, he was brought to Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. There were...
Martha Caroline Potts Pierson’s Experience with ‘Kirk’s Raiders’
Born in 1858, Martha Caroline, the daughter of Allen Potts and Susan Wade Potts, lived in the Yellow Mountain area of North Carolina. Martha was just about 5 years old when Yankee raiders came to her family's home. They stole what food the family had, and frustrated...
The Norton Family’s Experiences with ‘Kirk’s Raiders’
From April 186l through the spring of 1865, the Civil War exacted a heavy toll on the citizens of Cashiers Valley. The first part of the war saw sons, husbands and fathers joining the Confederacy and marching away to an unknown fate while other families held fast to...
Col. George Washington Kirk: That ‘Scalawag, Bushwhacker Man’
A few decades ago, I was asked by an elderly cousin if I knew anything about the ‘scalawag, bushwhacker man named Kirk’ who terrorized the Cashiers Valley area during the Civil War. She said stories about him had been passed down to her by her grandparents, and they...
J.C. Cox: Farmer, Hatmaker, Mill Owner, and Potter
My great-grandfather, Jeremiah Cox, lived close to Shiloh Church near Richland Creek in Randolph County. He served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. While a soldier, Jeremiah was wounded by a minié ball that could not be removed from his shoulder, so he...
Randolf County Man Hanged for Avoiding Draft
On June 2, 1976, in an article titled “Civil War Hanging Recalled” from The Courier-Tribune, Ralph L. Bulla wrote about the death of Randolf County man, Alson G. Allred. Men who were already serving in the Civil War “were angered because Allred supposedly ‘hid out,’”...
A Quaker Doctor Paid Someone to serve in His Stead
William Stout, born in 1825, was the son of Joseph and Naomi Stout. His father built four-horse wagons, and his mother made the covers for the wagons. The Stouts sold the wagons in Fayetteville for one hundred dollars each. The profits from those sales paid for young...
A Tale of Two Brothers
Lewis Osborn Sugg was born September 6, 1845 in Randolf County, and he was the son of Merritt A. Sugg and Tempy Spinks Sugg. The family story maintains that Lewis’s father, Merritt Sugg, left his home in eastern North Carolina and headed westward. He settled in the...
Finding His Way Home: A Soldier’s Move from Virginia to North Carolina
Originally from Black Lick, Wythe County, Virginia, William Everett Miller found himself displaced and relocated to a new home in western North Carolina after the Civil War ended. His father—Jacob Miller—mother, and siblings had moved to Cashiers Valley, North...
Memoir of Thomas B. Sanders of Kinston
Written by Thomas B. Sanders (Submitted by James L. Gaddis) My parents' farm was in Bentonville Township, Johnston County, N.C. A short distance from our home was the little village of Bentonville. It was in this area that the last major battle of the Civil War was...
Aunt Janie vs. the Yankees — and me
My great-grandfather's youngest sister has been dead for more than 130 years, but she's still driving me crazy. In fairness, she's had a lot of help. Janie Smith, who was living in the house I now occupy when William T. Sherman and William J. Hardee literally brought...
What Lee and Grant didn’t bother to debate
Lee. Grant. Appomattox. The three names have become almost shorthand for an end to four ghastly years of a war, all of whose casualties were Americans turned against one another. It is worth revisiting the correspondence and other documents of April 8, 9, and 10,...
Phone: 910-491-0602
Email: info@nccivilwarcenter.org
824 Branson Street
Post Office Box 53865
Fayetteville, NC 28305
Phone: 910-491-0602
Email: info@nccivilwarcenter.org
824 Branson Street
Post Office Box 53865
Fayetteville, NC 28305