Browse Items (39 total)

Joseph J. Hoyle was a twenty-four year old soldier who fought alongside friends, cousins, and family members in the 55th Regiment of the North Carolina Infantry. Lieutenant Hoyle was born in Cleveland County, North Carolina, and much of what we know…

Thomas C. Ruffin (1787-1870) was the elected judge of the Supreme Court of North Carolina from 1829 through 1852 and once again from 1858 through 1859. From 1833 until 1853, Thomas Ruffin served the Court as Chief Justice. Ruffin attended Princeton…

Josephus Daniels (1862-1848) was the influential editor of the Raleigh News and Observer during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He used his newspaper, which he purchased in 1894, to promote the political agenda of the Democratic…

William Woods Holden was the Governor of North Carolina throughout the period of our nation's history known as Reconstruction. Governor Holden would become to be the first state governor to be impeached and subsequently convicted, in American…

Lewis Bitting Banner was born in 1805 in Surry County, North Carolina. In 1856, Lewis B. Banner, his wife Nancy Meadow Flipping, and their seven children moved to Watauga County, North Carolina where their eighth child was born. He bought two…

John Willis Ellis was a North Carolina lawyer, legislator, judge, and Democratic governor. Born in Rowan County in 1820, he was a son of a Planter. Ellis graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1841, and served as a lawyer, until he was…

Although he was not a native of North Carolina, Major John H. Gee was a prominent figure in North Carolina during the Civil War era. Specifically, John Gee was the commanding officer for the Confederate Prison in Salisbury NC. Gee was born in…

Thomas Clingman is often overlooked in the history of the Civil War yet he played an extremely crucial role in the political realm in the years prior to 1861. Clingman was Southern through and through yet secession was not on his agenda. He…

William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) was a major-general in the Union Army during the Civil War. Sherman gained success in the Western Theater and oversaw the Military Division of the Mississippi after Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to the head of…

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…