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If you or your family members have any North Carolina-related stories from the Civil War and Reconstruction period, we want them! Please submit them by clicking on the red “Share Your Story” button below. This is a center for all North Carolinians, and we want our content to reflect that. We can’t do it without your help. If you would like for your story to be included, even if you have some details but not everything, let us know that. We might be able to help fill in the blanks.
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Featured Stories
A Letter to Jefferson Davis from George C. Beasley, April 21, 1862
Transcribed by Cheri Todd Molter Original Transcription: Camp of Starr’s Light Battery Greenville NC Apr 21st 1862 Hon J. Davis Pres C.S. I see by a...
The Story of George C. Beasley
Submitted by Matthew Howell; Vetted by Cheri Todd Molter and Kobe M. Brown; Edited by Cheri Todd Molter In Fayetteville, known as Cross Creek until 1778, there are many old cemeteries.[1] The oldest is the first Cross Creek Cemetery, which was established in 1785.[2]...
Misplaced Trust: Prominent Men Disregard Molly Horniblow’s Last Wishes
Submitted by Somerset Place State Historic Site; edited by Cheri Todd Molter In 1859, Josiah Collins III wrote a letter to Harriet Jacobs, a formerly enslaved woman who had escaped bondage in Edenton by hiding in her grandmother’s crawlspace for seven years. Harriet...
Documenting The Life and Works of Dr. John Jefferson Smallwood
Written by Mary E. C. Drew; Edited and vetted by Cheri Todd Molter and Kobe M. Brown In 1831, just over three decades before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery in America, an enslaved Virginian named Nat Turner, along with a group of armed enslaved...
![“[T]hat was the time when it was enough to make one think of home and all that we had left behind us. it was perfectfuly [sic] frightful to hear the shells come crashing through the woods and pass over our heads”: Transcriptions of a Letter written by Thomas Barnaby](https://nccivilwarcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2025.03.04_That-was-the-time-when-it-was-enough-to-make-one-think_Featured_story-400x250.png)
“[T]hat was the time when it was enough to make one think of home and all that we had left behind us. it was perfectfuly [sic] frightful to hear the shells come crashing through the woods and pass over our heads”: Transcriptions of a Letter written by Thomas Barnaby
Submission written and letter transcribed by Cheri Todd Molter On August 29, 1862, Thomas J. Barnaby, a 23-year-old Clerk, enlisted in the Union Army at Dorchester, MA. He served in Company G of the MA 44th Infantry. The following are transcriptions of a letter he...
Lavina “Vina” Curry: A Free Black Washerwoman Who Helped Men Escape Enslavement
Written by Cheri Todd Molter In his article entitled “Hidden Figure: How a Black Washerwoman Helped Free 15 Slaves,” Ross Howell, Jr. writes, “We don’t know where ‘Vina’ was born or how she died. We have no likeness of her—no etching or drawing. Yet a Guilford College...
Our State, Our Stories
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Story Collection