Throughout this month, the McDowell County Public Library will host a traveling display of 24 images about the bloodiest war in American history and how it deeply affected North Carolinians.
In observance of the sesquicentennial of the War Between the States, the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources has organized a special exhibit titled “Freedom, Sacrifice, Memory: Civil War Sesquicentennial Photography.” This exhibit of 24 photographs will travel the state from April 1, 2011 through the spring of 2013 as part of the state’s official commemoration of the struggle that lasted from 1861 through 1865.
“It is called a brother’s war and nowhere was that more true than in North Carolina,” reads a news release from the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. “The American Civil War claimed more lives that any military engagement undertaken by this country. North Carolina lost at least 35,000 soldiers, more than any other Southern state, and great hardships were suffered by those both at war and left at home.”
The photo exhibit is now on display in the downstairs meeting room at the McDowell County Public Library in Marion. Patti Holda works as the genealogical assistant in the library’s Abe Simmons Genealogy and N.C. History Room. She helped get it set up in the downstairs meeting room. It was open for the first time on Friday.
As part of the exhibit, period correct music is playing in the room to help set the mood and take visitors back to the time of the War Between the States.
Visitors to the exhibit will see well-known Confederate generals and leaders like Gov. Zebulon B. Vance, women who served as Confederate spies such as Rose O’Neal Greenhow and images of modern-day re-enactors who portray soldiers from that time. The battlefield, the homefront and black North Carolinians are all represented in the exhibit.
“A notebook accompanying the exhibit will offer sketches of the generals, of African Americans fleeing bondage, a woman whose home became a hospital and other glimpses of life from that turbulent time,” reads the news release.
The photos were taken from divisions within the Department of Cultural Resources, including four document images and 10 photos from the State Archives. Five images came from the N.C. Museum of History and five others came from the Civil War-related State Historic Sites.
One of the photos shows the moving blood-stained message left by Confederate Col. Isaac Avery. A native son of Burke County, Avery commanded a brigade during the Battle of Gettysburg. He was mortally wounded during the assault on Cemetery Hill on July 2, 1863. As he lay dying on the field of battle, Avery managed to write a note which he gave to Major Samuel Tate of the 6th N.C. Regiment. It read “Major, tell my father I died with my face to the enemy. I. E. Avery.”
Another photo shows a reunion of Thomas’ Legion. This was a unit of the Confederate Army comprised of Cherokee Indians and white settlers led by William Holland Thomas, the only white man to be chief of the Cherokees.
The tour will visit 49 public libraries and was organized through the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources. “Freedom, Sacrifice, Memory” will be on display at the McDowell County Public Library throughout the month of March. The exhibit will be open during the library’s regular hours, which are from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The library is also open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. The downstairs room where the exhibit is located may sometimes be booked for other uses.
The last day of the exhibit is Thursday, March 29.
“From here, it will go to Haywood County,” said Holda.
The exhibit will return to McDowell County in May 2013 when it will be on display at the Mountain Gateway Museum in Old Fort.
For more information about the tour, visit www.nccivilwar150.com or call (919) 807-7389. For more information about the local exhibit, call the McDowell County Public Library at 652-3858.
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