On Memorial Day: NC’s Rich Military History

I’m a bit of a military history buff, got it from my father. Though he spent 27 years serving the country in the U.S. Navy and participated in both WW-II and Korea, he never wanted to talk much about his own experiences. He was big on Civil War history - we often spent our summer vacations touring battlefields from Gettysburg to Wilderness-Fredricksburg-Chancelorsville, Shiloh to Bull Run to Antietam, Fort Sumter to Vicksburg and lots of places in between. We’d stand on the hills where the generals plotted their strategies and ordered their troops, we’d walk the fieldstone walls that still bear the bullet and cannon scars, we traced the trenches and fortifications, imagined we could still feel the ghosts who snuck through the thick woods to flank the enemy by early morning, traced the names of the fallen in cemeteries formal and overgrown.

The other half of the summers we mostly spent touring Revolutionary sites. Valley Forge, Frontier, more Charleston and the banks of the Potomac that stayed war-torn year after year. People my generation and younger tend to think of America’s wars as blood shed on foreign soil, but our own ground has been amply watered with blood over the centuries. And of all the states of the now-50 whose stars grace our flag, North Carolina has the distinction of being “the most military-friendly state in America” (by declaration of Governor Mike Easley).

For visitors who enjoy military history as much as I do, North Carolina hosts bases and museums and battlefields and attractions that can fill weeks with knowledge and photo opportunities and memories and material covering the whole history of this nation and its military ventures that collectors, history buffs and diverse descendants of warriors will treasure.

The coastal town of Wilmington hosts the Battleship North Carolina anchored in the famous Cape Fear River as a World War 2 memorial. It hosts a museum for all ships to bear the name North Carolina, beginning with a wooden ship-of-the-line in the 1820s, a Confederate ironclad, the WW-I armored cruiser, a never-finished battleship for that same war, and the WW-II battleship visitors can tour. The ship was deployed to the Pacific theatre where it e arned 15 battle stars, and hosts collections of many artifacts, documents, photographs and works of art.

Also along Cape Fear is the colonial port town of Brunswick offers tours of archaeological excavations and a visitor’s center with AV presentations, exhibits and collections of artifacts from the Revolutionary era as well as Fort Anderson, a Civil War fortification preserved and open to the public. The town itself was razed by British troops in 1776 and never rebuilt. Fort Anderson was built atop the ruins.

Still in the Wilmington area, Civil War buffs will want to visit the Battle of Bentonville battlefield and Civil War store. Bentonville was fought on March 19, 20 and 21, 1865, the last full-scale action of the war in which the Confederates were able to mount a tactical offensive. It was the largest battle ever fought in North Carolina, and the only significant attempt to defeat the Union army of General William T. Sherman during its march through the Carolinas during the last spring of the conflict. The Park Service offers maps and information about the battles against Fort Fisher in New Hanover County between December of 1864 and February of 1865. Known as the “Gibraltar of the South,” Fort Fisher guarded Cape Fear and the city of Wilmington (the last major Confederate port). Preserved are some of the original ramparts and relics from the blockade runners that found refuge at the fort.

There are also the many active military bases in North Carolina, most of which offer visitor’s information and histories of the units, such as the 101st Airborne and Army Special Forces at Fort Bragg, the Marines from Camp Lejuene, and the ‘fly-guys’ at Pope AF Base that “put the Air into Airborne.” If you’re a military and military history buff, check out some of the military links offered below and start planning your grand tour today!

Links:

Links to NC Military History Sites
NC State Archives, Military Collection
North Carolina Military History Gallery, Raleigh

Related Ads:

Filed under Military, Civil War, Carolina Coast, Carolina History, Family Activities, Museums |