Exhibit Opens on Roanoke Island's Role in Civil War

An exhibit about Roanoke Island's role in the Civil War opens at the Outer Banks Visitor Center today. Curator Kaeli Schurr says capturing the island was an important part of the strategy for both the confederacy and the union.

Kaeli Schurr: After a long summer of both sides training troops and devising military strategy, both knew that whoever would be able to control the supply lines would control all of eastern North Carolina. And that led then to being able to disrupt the supply lines from Wilmington up to the Confederate capital in Richmond.

Schurr says after the Union victory in a two-day battle in 1862, Roanoke became home to as many as four thousand blacks who flocked to the area for protection. The exhibit is free to the public and runs through the end of the year.