Submitted to the Daily Reflector June, 2007
Civil War in eastern North Carolina Focus of Exhibit
Special to the Daily Reflector by Maury York
A new exhibit in the Verona Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection at East Carolina University’s J.Y. Joyner Library showcases historically important images pertaining to the Civil War in eastern North Carolina. The recent acquisition of rare prints and a Union regimental history add flavor to this display, which will remain on view through September 30.
The people of the coastal region of North Carolina tasted the hardship of war throughout the conflict. Included in the exhibit are prints depicting aspects of Union General Ambrose Burnside’s expedition, which began in 1862. Scenes from the February 15, 1862, issue of Harper’s Weekly document “Horses of Rhode Island Artillery disembarking” from a ship, the “Hotel DeAfrique” at Hatteras Inlet and the wreck of the U.S.S. Zouave.
A striking image from The Soldier in Our Civil War (1884) depicts a large number of Confederate prisoners taken during the capture of Roanoke Island in 1862. Additional views from an April 12, 1862, issue of Harper’s Weekly show Union troops landing below Confederate forts near New Bern, and the bombardment of the town.
A print published in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper in April 1865 portrays a battle that took place near Kinston on March 8, 1865.
The North Carolina Collection recently acquired a copy of James B. Gardner’s Record of the Service of the Forty-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in North Carolina. Published in Boston in 1887, the book contains thirty-two photographic prints taken in the fall of 1884 during a nostalgic return to North Carolina by William Garrison Reed for his chapter “North Carolina Revisited.”
The photographs show the site of the Battle of Whitehall, an old cotton press, commercial and residential buildings in New Bern, and scenes around Washington. The exhibit contains copies of the photographs depicting the site of the skirmish at Rawle’s Mill in Martin County, which took place on November 2, 1862.
The exhibit, curated by Fred Harrison, can be viewed during the North Carolina Collection’s regular hours: Monday – Thursday, 8 a.m.-9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; and Sunday, 1-9 p.m. Additional resources pertaining to the Civil War in North Carolina are available in the Collection itself.
Maury York is the head of the Special Collections Department at Joyner Library
