Sacrifice

To understand the sacrifice and service wrought by North Carolinians, the History Center will provide a deep interpretive experience …

… that will accurately portray the immense difficulties and challenges of life before, during, and after the War for soldiers, sailors, civilians, landowners, yeoman farmers, the enslaved, runaways, Freedmen, Native Americans, men, women, and children. There will be no attempt to whitewash the horrific aspects of slavery and Jim Crow.

Widely accepted in earlier years, the “Lost Cause” version of Civil War and Reconstruction memory falsely stressed White nobility and suffering, Black passivity and helplessness, postwar corruption and incompetence. Remembering North Carolina’s active Underground Railroad, the 5,000 Black North Carolinians who fought and died for the Union, and others who sacrificed for freedom and a better future during and after the War, the North Carolina Civil War & Reconstruction History Center honors a more inclusive history with broader and more accurate memories. Virtually every North Carolinian paid a price for the Civil War and its aftermath. The History Center is here to tell their stories. All their stories.

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