Browse Items (26 total)

In North Carolina’s 1864 gubernatorial elections between Governor Zebulon B. Vance and William W. Holden, Vance promoted strong intimidation tactics in order to scare Holden’s supporters into voting for Vance on election day. It is also…

During the Civil War, the absence of men and scarcity of supplies created tremendous hardship for women and children at home, particularly in the South. Union naval blockades cut off most ports, making food, clothing, and other goods scarce and…

Married white women in antebellum North Carolina had no independent legal identity. They could not sue or be sued, and they could not own property separate from their husbands. Their husbands were held liable for their actions. (Link 2009, 167-168)…

During the Civil War Wilmington, North Carolina was one of the only Confederate ports not blockaded by the U.S. Navy. Southern states were not equipped to produce supplies necessary to sustain the war effort or home front, and southerners relied on…

In 1838, the federal government forcibly removed 15,000 Cherokees from North Carolina and surrounding states to reservations west of the Mississippi river. In this forced march, known as the Trail of Tears, approximately 4,000 to 5,000 Indians died.…

The term "Tar Heel" originated in the Civil War-era. Sources indicate that members of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia teased soldiers from North Carolina with the nickname. Many North Carolinians worked in the naval stores industry…

In early April of 1865, the Union brigade led by Colonel Palmer of General George Stoneman’s raiders, invaded the town of Elkin, North Carolina, to requisition food supplies. The remainder of the Union force was trapped on the South side of the…

In the mid-19th Century, an elite southern white man’s reputation could make him or break him. He worked to demonstrate honor through honest dealings, activity in church and community life, respect for white women, generosity to lower classes, and…

In antebellum North Carolina, there were six distinct social classes. The gentry, or planter class, were those few people who owned more than twenty slaves, or well-to-do professionals like high-level public officials or lawyers. The middle class…

Slavery expanded in North Carolina during the antebellum era. The enslaved population grew from 100,000 in 1790, about 25 percent of the total population, to 331,000 in 1860, approximately 30 percent. The slave population was not evenly distributed…