Browse Items (39 total)

James William "Jim Billy" Craig was a river and harbor pilot on the Cape Fear River during and after the Civil War. He is most well known as the pilot for the blockade runnners Annie, Don, Gibraltar, Lilian, Lynx, and Orion. In the short four year of…

Major Peter Mallett was placed in charge of organizing, training, and deploying the men conscripted in North Carolina soon after Jefferson Davis signed the conscription act in April 1862. He was born in 1825 to a prominent family in Fayetteville,…

Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick (1827-1886) was born and raised in Davidson County, North Carolina, the oldest of seven children to John and Elizabeth Hedrick. Benjamin's father was the descendant of German immigrants and a fairly prosperous bricklayer and…

William Woods Holden, 24 Nov. 1818-2 Nov. 1892

William Woods Holden rose in power as a whig and a republican. He was a practicing lawyer, but also the ironic owner of a Democratic newspaper in North Carolina. He ran for the Governors seat a few…

Louis Leon was a Confederate soldier who served in the Charlotte Grays, Company C, First North Carolina Regiment. He served from April 1861 to April 1865. In that time, he recorded much of that time spent as a soldier in his diary. He served as part…

General Ambrose E. Burnside was born on May 23, 1824. Burnside began his military career upon graduation from the United States Military in 1847. He would become a second lieutenant during the Mexican-American War and would be put on garrison duty in…

Bartholomew F. Moore was a lawyer and leader of the Unionist cause for North Carolina during the Civil War. Moore was one of many people that gave creditability to a pro-Union cause and was against the act of secession. Even with the abandonment of…

Nat Turner (1800-1831) was a slave from Southampton, Virginia, which is located twenty miles from the North Carolina boarder. His slave rebellion on August 21st, 1831, created mass fear and rumors of slave insurrections throughout North Carolina,…

Thomas Ruffin was born in Virginia in November of 1787, and moved to North Carolina early in his life. He attended Princeton University and later studied law in Rockingham County and eventually passed the bar in 1808. After practicing law for a few…

Zebulon Baird Vance was born in Western North Carolina in 1831 to a middle class family. After high school, Vance continued his education at the University of North Carolina where he pursued a degree in law. Vance slowly worked his way up in North…