North Carolina

tlyne

Private
Joined
Apr 25, 2016
Location
Cambridge, OH
We will be in North Carolina in the spring/early summer of 2019. What are some of the better Civil War sites to visit? Thanks in advance.
 
Greetings from Columbus, Ohio.

DEFINITELY go to Bentonville if you can, and visit the Averasboro battlefield too.

A large percentage of the Bentonville battlefield has been preserved in largely pristine condition, and virtually the entire Averasboro battlefield is preserved, too.

http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bentonvi/

https://www.averasboro.com

There's a nice 1862 battlefield park for the First Battle of Kinston.

http://www.historicalpreservationgroup.org/wil_park.htm

There's a portion of Fort Fisher that remains, if you're going to be near Wilmington.

http://www.nchistoricsites.org/fisher/

There's the site where Joseph E. Johnston surrendered 90,000 Confederates to William T. Sherman in April 1865, Bennett Place, a place near and dear to my heart.

http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bennett/

There are a couple of interesting sites at Fayetteville, including the remnant of the Fayetteville Arsenal, which is part of the Museum of the Cape Fear. Both are worth a visit.

https://museumofthecapefear.ncdcr.gov/arsenal-park

There's a nice little battlefield park at Goldsboro, too: the Goldsboro Bridge Battlefield.

http://www.goldsboroughbridge.org

Those are the main ones. That ought to give you plenty to explore.
 
Greetings from Columbus, Ohio.

DEFINITELY go to Bentonville if you can, and visit the Averasboro battlefield too.

A large percentage of the Bentonville battlefield has been preserved in largely pristine condition, and virtually the entire Averasboro battlefield is preserved, too.

http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bentonvi/

https://www.averasboro.com

There's a nice 1862 battlefield park for the First Battle of Kinston.

http://www.historicalpreservationgroup.org/wil_park.htm

There's a portion of Fort Fisher that remains, if you're going to be near Wilmington.

http://www.nchistoricsites.org/fisher/

There's the site where Joseph E. Johnston surrendered 90,000 Confederates to William T. Sherman in April 1865, Bennett Place, a place near and dear to my heart.

http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bennett/

There are a couple of interesting sites at Fayetteville, including the remnant of the Fayetteville Arsenal, which is part of the Museum of the Cape Fear. Both are worth a visit.

https://museumofthecapefear.ncdcr.gov/arsenal-park

There's a nice little battlefield park at Goldsboro, too: the Goldsboro Bridge Battlefield.

http://www.goldsboroughbridge.org

Those are the main ones. That ought to give you plenty to explore.

Thanks for the information about the Goldsboro Bridge Battlefield! That's a new site to me and
its located right in the middle of the area where my wife grew up and her familly still lives. I'm
going to have to make a side trip and check that out the next time we go to visit her kindred.

I'm going to recommend two more sites that are near or in the vicinity of Wayne County where
the Goldsboro Bridge Battlefield is located. The town of Seven Springs has a battlefield with a
few historical markers that mark the spot where the Battle of Whitehall was fought in December
1862 during Foster's Raid and his attempt to destroy the ram Neuse. Seven Springs is on the
Neuse where a bridge once stood that was burned during Foster's Raid. Reenactments are
often held in Seven Springs during various times of the year.

The city of Kinston has the C.S.S Neuse exhibit which is within short driving distance
of Seven Springs and has an excellent exhibit about the ram C.S.S. Neuse and its history
if you are interested in Civil War naval warfare.
 
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Greetings from Columbus, Ohio.

DEFINITELY go to Bentonville if you can, and visit the Averasboro battlefield too.

A large percentage of the Bentonville battlefield has been preserved in largely pristine condition, and virtually the entire Averasboro battlefield is preserved, too.

http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bentonvi/

https://www.averasboro.com

There's a nice 1862 battlefield park for the First Battle of Kinston.

http://www.historicalpreservationgroup.org/wil_park.htm

There's a portion of Fort Fisher that remains, if you're going to be near Wilmington.

http://www.nchistoricsites.org/fisher/

There's the site where Joseph E. Johnston surrendered 90,000 Confederates to William T. Sherman in April 1865, Bennett Place, a place near and dear to my heart.

http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bennett/

There are a couple of interesting sites at Fayetteville, including the remnant of the Fayetteville Arsenal, which is part of the Museum of the Cape Fear. Both are worth a visit.

https://museumofthecapefear.ncdcr.gov/arsenal-park

There's a nice little battlefield park at Goldsboro, too: the Goldsboro Bridge Battlefield.

http://www.goldsboroughbridge.org

Those are the main ones. That ought to give you plenty to explore.


Eric,

Do you know if anything remains of the fortifications in and around Wilmington that saw action in the operations after the fall of Fort Fisher, namely Fort Anderson?
 
Thanks for the information about the Goldsboro Bridge Battlefield! That's a new site to me and
its located right in the middle of the area where my wife grew up and her familly still lives. I'm
going to have to make a side trip and check that out the next time we go to visit her kindred.

You're welcome! It's a cool site, although the last time I was there in the fall of 2016, it had suffered at the hands of a recent hurricane. I'm sure that Florence didn't do it any favors last year.
 
Thank you. I’ll probably have three, maybe three and a half days to spend in the are.

When you go to Bentonville, I recommend trying to arrange for a guide. It's a BIG battlefield, and much of it is in the woods. It would be really easy to get lost. If you go to the website of the Friends of Bentonville Battlefield, I believe that it has information about how to arrange for a guided tour. Here's a link to the Friends' website: http://fobb.net/Tours.aspx.

Dean Harry, the president of FOBB, is also a licensed battlefield guide at Gettysburg--he commutes to Gettysburg from Raleigh. And my good friend Wade Sokolosky, who occasionally posts here, is the VP of FOBB. If I didn't live so far away, I would be very involved with this organization and would likely be certified as a tour guide. But it's a 9 hour drive from my house, so it's not very practical.
 
I live about 80 miles east of Columbus. It says Bentonville is an eight hour drive from Cambridge. I’m a school teacher, and I’m thinking about going to NC on spring break. The only hang up would be a bad winter and make up days.
 
I live about 80 miles east of Columbus. It says Bentonville is an eight hour drive from Cambridge. I’m a school teacher, and I’m thinking about going to NC on spring break. The only hang up would be a bad winter and make up days.

Understood. You're an hour east of me, which is why your drive is 8 hours and mine is 9. It's an easy drive. I77S to I40E, and then you get off of I40 at the exit that has the sign that says "Bentonville Battleground", which is the exit for Newton Grove (which is not much of a town). It's just a few miles from the freeway to the battlefield proper.
 
Also, thank you very much for the information!

Any time. I've been going there for years. In April, I'm going to be doing a program for FOBB that includes tours of Monroe's Crossroads (which is in the middle of Fort Bragg and not accessible to the public without a lot of effort; I wrote a book about the battle that was published 12 years ago), Wade and his co-author Mark Smith are doing Fayetteville and Averasboro, and Mark Bradley is leading the Bentonville piece. This was supposed to be this past September, but Florence washed us out. My tour, Fayetteville and Averasboro are a full day on Saturday, and Mark Bradley's tour is half a day on Sunday.

Please do yourself a favor and find time to visit the surrender site at Bennett Place. You'll be very near it when you pass by Durham on I-40. It's well worth a visit. There's a nifty little museum there, and the events that happened there, while not as well known by any stretch of the imagination, are just as important as what happened at Appomattox a couple of weeks earlier.
 
Fort Macon on Emerald Isle is a very well preserved brick fortress. Fort Fisher near Wilmington was one of the most modern forts of it's day. Bentonville has a nice battlefield preserved. The Bennett Place in Durham is great but the Duke Homestead is more interesting to me. The Duke Chapel in Durham is also worth a visit. Make sure you find some good Barbecue joints. We are known for our fine slow cooked pork. Western North Carolina style and Down East style. Best in the country! Now I know that may offend some Texans but they don't eat pork in Texas because they don't believe in killing house pets.

Kings Mountain battlefield is from the revolutionary war as is Cowpens.
 
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