Browse Items (916 total)

Reminiscences of our civil war have been given to the public image again and again, and our most able men have recited the details of the great battles and stirring events. But there are few records of the experiences of women in that war. This…

"I commenced my work with the freed people of color, in North Carolina, at Roanoke Island, soon after the battle of the 8th of February, 1862, which resulted so gloriously for our country.

A party of fifteen or twenty of these loyal blacks, men,…

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…

“By the Constitution of this State I was empowered to be commander-in-chief to call out the militia, to execute the law, suppress riots and insurrections, and to repel invasion.” (Holden 1911, 120) This was Holden’s statement in…

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.…

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…

Many people believe that Republicans wanted to abolish slavery because they viewed it as an immoral and evil institution. Some abolitionists used their religious beliefs to shape political debates over the issue of slavery. In an article, the…

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…

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…