Tagged: Civil War

On June 2nd, 1913, the University of North Carolina dedicated a memorial on its Chapel Hill campus to students who had fought for the Confederacy.  A century later, Silent Sam – as the statue has come to be known – still stirs passions.

A battle-worn confederate flag has undergone a $6500 dollar preservation and has now been returned to the North Carolina Museum of History. The flag was lost in the final months of the Civil War and was carried by the 6th Regiment of North Carolina in the Battle of Sailor's Creek in Virginia. It was captured by Union forces in 1865.

Jackson Marshall, the museum's assistant director of programming, says the flag has been cleaned and placed under glass in an acid-free environment that should last another 50 years.

The remains of two Union sailors who went down with the ironclad USS Monitor off the North Carolina coast will be honored Friday at Arlington National Cemetery. 

The Civil War ship sank 150 years ago.  The remains were found in 2002.  Lauren Heesemann is the research coordinator for NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. 

On May 12, 1864 during the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse in Virginia, a Union soldier in hand-to-hand combat with a North Carolina standard-bearer tore the battle flag right off its staff. The flag ripped along its left border, the color-bearer was captured and imprisoned, and the Union soldier who seized the flag was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his deed. Today, the historic flag is on display at the North Carolina Museum of History.