Browse Items (26 total)

When researching North Carolinian reactions to major judicial and political oppression in the Reconstruction era (1865-1877), many primary sources indicate that North Carolina was liberal in relation to other southern states. Yet, in an era of such…

Not many people know that Caswell County, North Carolina, had a fairly large population in the nineteenth century. Tax and census records, however, show that the county was large enough to be split into districts to account for all residents. Thomas…

Historian David Williams relays that “roughly 200,000 blacks, most of them refugees from slavery, served in the Union armed forces." (Williams 2014, 5) Though many people may not know this fact, runaway slaves' participation in the Union army…

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…

Over 10,000 enslaved persons seeking freedom fled to eastern North Carolina, primarily to New Bern and Roanoke Island,after the region was captured by Union troops in 1862. Once behind Union lines these African Americans supported the U.S. war…

Thousands of African Americans wanted to fight against the institution of slavery by joining the U.S. military, but were prohibited from doing so by federal law passed in 1792. Only after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on…

During the Civil War both the North and South often used a system of parole to deal with surrendered opponents, rather than taking prisoners. Captured soldiers were released on parole on their promise not to take up arms again, or not to take up arms…

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…

Many women played a prominent strategic role in the Civil War, and some lost their lives for their cause. Rose O’Neal Greenhow served as a spy and ambassador for the Confederacy. Greenhow was arrested in 1862 for espionage and exiled from…

The story of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction is well known. Most southern states felt repercussions from Klan influence and violence. Lisa Cardyn explores Klan violence on a level that is often overlooked: the sexual nature of Klan violence.…