Civil War North Carolina

Whew… what a writing marathon. I finished the draft for Civil War North Carolina this past Saturday. For those of you who don’t know, Civil War North Carolina is a concise, well-illustrated history of North Carolina and the war. The first five chapters cover events in North Carolina from 1860 to 1865. Chapter 6 looks at Tar Heel soldiers who marched away. Chapter 7 examines reconstruction, Chapter 8 the memorialization process (monuments, cemeteries, veterans groups like the UCV, UDC, and GAR), and chapter 9 is a “looking for the war today” examination of museums and historic sites.


While this book does not present anything new, per se, it is the first time that you will be able to read about the war, reconstruction, and the reunion process all in one place. Well to be honest, there is really no other place to read about the memorialization process. If there is, I’ve not found it.

So what where my primary resources? Period newspapers, bios on Vance, Worth, Woods, and Stanly. I used histories by Powell, Barrett, Trotter, Meekins, Bradley, and Inscoe. And I used three dissertations – Wood’s Port Town at War: Wilmington; McGee’s On the Edge of the Crater (Raleigh); and Auman’s Neighbor against Neighbor. Of course, there were a hundred more other books and articles that I consulted.

Civil War North Carolina is being published by the History Press out of Charleston, South Carolina. I look forward to telling you more about it in the fall when it is released.