Gov. Tryon Takes on the Regulators at Alamance

On May 16, 1771, the Battle of Alamance was fought. The two opposing forces were colonial militia, under the command of Governor William Tryon, and a band of frontier citizens known as Regulators, who raised arms against corrupt practices in local government. Tryon’s force of 1,100 men marched into Regulator country to subdue the uprisings. About 2,000 Regulators, armed with old muskets and makeshift weapons, organized near Tryon’s camp. Messages were exchanged, with the governor demanding immediate and complete surrender of the Regulators and the Regulators petitioning the Governor for reforms.

Nothing came of the negotiations and, on the morning of May 16, Tryon ordered his forces to march. Tryon sent messages offering surrender terms while his militia marched slowly forward, but the Regulators rejected them all. The governor’s artillery began the engagement, followed by concentrated musket fire from the militia. The Regulators prevailed for a while before retreating into the woods. Eventually Tryon ordered a charge, which drove the Regulators from their positions.

Nine Regulators were killed, more than 200 were wounded and between 20 and 30 were taken prisoner. Nine of Tryon’s men were killed and another 61 were wounded. Though the Battle of Alamance quieted the Regulators, the effects of their calls for reform eventually reverberated.

Other related resources:

• Events at Alamance Battleground
• Alamance Battleground State Historic Site
• Farming Dissenters: The Regulator Movement in Piedmont North Carolina from N.C. Historical Publications

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, make sure you subscribe by email using the box on the right, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

St. Augustine’s Henry B. Delany

On May 15, 1918, Henry Beard Delany became the first black Episcopal bishop in North Carolina and only the second in the United States. A native Georgian who grew up in Florida, Delany came to North Carolina in 1881 when he enrolled at St. Augustine’s Normal School (now St. Augustine’s College). He remained at the school teaching courses, overseeing facility construction, serving as vice principal and, after he was ordained an Episcopal priest, as the school chaplain.

Delany was elected bishop “in charge of Negro work” and served in that capacity broadly across North and South Carolina. His work is credited with the improvement of the quality of life among African Americans in the South. At his death, he was memorialized as having risen “to a position of eminence in which he had won not only the esteem of his white colleagues throughout the country but also their love.”

Two of Delany’s daughters became famous in the 1990s for their book Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years. The book was later adapted into a play and film.

Other related resources:

• Celebrate Black History! from the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources
• A History of African Americans in North Carolina from N.C. Historical Publications
• Resources related to black history from the State Library

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, make sure you subscribe by email using the box on the right, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Birthday of Zeb Vance—the State’s Champion

A circra 1880-1894 image of Vance, held by the N.C. Museum of History

On May 13, 1830, Zebulon Baird Vance was born in the Reems Creek area of Buncombe County. Raised in Asheville, Vance studied at the University of North Carolina. After setting up a law practice in Asheville, he launched his political career.  Known for his personality and oratorical skills, Vance served as a state senator, U.S. congressman and governor.

Initially an opponent of secession, Vance cast his lot with his state and region after President Abraham Lincoln’s call to arms. Vance raised his own company and was later elected colonel of the Twenty-Sixth Regiment.

Though the war raged on, politics was never far from Vance’s mind. The Conservative Party selected the popular colonel as its candidate for governor in 1862. The election resulted in an overwhelming victory for Vance, who, at 32, became the youngest chief executive in state history.

On his birthday in 1865, Vance was arrested in Statesville by federal cavalry as he attempted to flee the approaching Union army. He was imprisoned in Washington, D.C., for two months. No charges were ever brought and he was eventually released.

On May 13, 1961, Vance’s 131st birthday, the Gov. Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace State Historic Site in Weaverville was dedicated and opened to the public.

Other related resources:

• Examining Letters of Zebulon B. Vance, North Carolina’s Civil War Governor, a lesson guide from North Carolina Historic Sites
• Historical images of governors from the State Archives
• Biographies of North Carolina’s governors on NCpedia
• Governors of North Carolina and The Papers of Zebulon Baird Vance, Volume 1: 1842-1862,  from N.C. Historical Publications

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, make sure you subscribe by email using the box on the right, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Worth Bagley, Casualty of the Spanish-American War

A photograph of Bagley held by the N.C. Museum of History

On May 11, 1898, in battle at Cárdenas, Cuba, Ensign Worth Bagley of Raleigh became the first naval officer and first North Carolinian killed in the Spanish-American War. The sinking of the USS Maine on February 15, 1898, led to a declaration of war on Spain by the United States. North Carolina met President William McKinley’s call for troops by establishing three regiments.

Born in Raleigh in April 1874, Worth Bagley graduated at the United States Naval Academy in 1895. He achieved the rank of ensign in July 1897, and, in November, was appointed inspector of the new torpedo boat Winslow. When she went into commission the next month, Bagley became her executive officer. In April 1898, the Winslow was mobilized, with the fleet, for operations in Cuban waters.

A circa 1907-1914 postcard of the State Captiol with the Bagley monument in the foreground

On the morning of May 11, the ship went with two others to force open the entrance to the harbor of Cárdenas. The Winslow was fired upon by a Spanish gunboat and a battle ensued. The ship was disabled and was hauled out of range of the Spanish guns. Just as the engagement ended, Bagley and four sailors were killed by a shell.

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, make sure you subscribe by email using the box on the right, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

World War II Prisoners of War in North Carolina

POWs captured from the sinking on U-352

On May 9, 1942, the U.S. Coast Guard sank German U-boat 352 off the Outer Banks. Thirteen German sailors died and 33 were plucked from the water. They were taken to Fort Bragg and confined as prisoners of war. During the course of the war thousands of POWs—mostly German and Italians—were captured and sent to camps in North Carolina.

Most POWs were brought to North Carolina from abroad. Fritz Teichmann was a member of the German Luftwaffe (the air corps) and was captured in Sicily in July 1943. He was held as a POW at Camp Butner in Granville County. Giuseppe Pagliarulo, a soldier in Benito Mussolini’s Italian army, was captured in Tunisia in North Africa in May 1943 and held at Camp Sutton in Monroe.

So many POWs were brought to the state that men were sent from larger military bases to smaller branch camps. These smaller camps housed up to 500 men each and were located in 16 communities around the Tar Heel state, including Whiteville, Roanoke Rapids, Williamston and Hendersonville. From there, they were placed on compulsory work details and sent out to cut pulpwood, dig ditches, wash dishes and pick apples. Their employers—farmers, loggers and restaurant owners—knew of the camps but otherwise their presence was relatively secret.

Read more in North Carolina and the Two World Wars from N.C. Historical Publications.

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, make sure you subscribe by email using the box on the right, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Evelyn Whitlow, Army Nurse

An image of Whitlow from the N.C. Museum of History

On May 7, 1942, Evelyn Whitlow was among the 77 Army and Navy nurses captured following the fall of the Philippines. The Whitlow family of Leasburg, in Caswell County, saw six of their 12 children (four sons and two daughters) enter the service during World War II. Evelyn B. Whitlow was the first of the family to join the military. In May 1940, she enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) as a second lieutenant. Whitlow was serving as a nurse in the Philippines when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941.

Known as the Angels of Bataan and Corregidor, the captured nurses were the first group of American women taken as prisoners of war. For three years she remained in Santo Thomas, a Japanese internment camp outside Manila, until being liberated on February 3, 1945. After the war, she left the ANC, married a fellow POW from Santo Thomas and moved to California. Whitlow died at the age of 78, in 1994.

Other related resources:

• North Carolina and the Two World Wars from N.C. Historical Publications
• North Carolina at Home and in Battle in World War II from the N.C. Museum of History
• Military women on NCpedia
• Timeline of women’s history in North Carolina from the N.C. Museum of History
• Resources related to women’s history from the State Library

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, make sure you subscribe by email using the box on the right, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Steamship Launched at Swansboro

On May 6, 1818, 11 years after Robert Fulton’s invention of the steamship, Otway Burns launched a similar vessel in North Carolina. Burns, known for his privateering during the War of 1812, built the Prometheus at his waterfront lot, number six, at the mouth of the White Oak River in Swansboro. He attracted the attention of North Carolina newspapers as he strove to launch the Prometheus before the Henrietta, built that year in Fayetteville. The steamship Prometheus entered service on the Cape Fear River by the summer of 1818, shortly before the Henrietta.

The vessel operated a route between Smithville (now Southport) and Wilmington, which took about four hours and cost passengers $1 each way. Perhaps two of the most famous of the commuters on the Prometheus were President James Monroe and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, who rode the steamship to inspect Fort Johnston in April 1819.

Read more in Internal Improvement in Antebellum North Carolina from N.C. Historical Publications.

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

The CSS Albemarle and the Battle of Batchelor’s Bay

The last picture taken of the CSS Albemarle before being scrapped in 1867. Image from the N.C. Museum of History

On May 5, 1864, the CSS Albemarle crossed Batchelor’s Bay and fought seven Union warships. Upon entering the Albemarle Sound the Confederate ram, under command of Captain J. W. Cooke, and her escort vessels were attacked by four double-ended steamers and three smaller gunboats under Captain Melancton Smith. The Albemarle opened attack late in the day. Leading the first line of attack was the Union flagship, the Mattabesett. The Albemarle returned fire, destroying the launch and cutting away some of the standing and running rigging.

The steamer Sassacus then struck the ironclad. The crew of the Albemarle responded with a 100-pound shot through the starboard boiler of the Union vessel and into her wardroom. The scalded men managed to free the ship as they drifted out of range. All parties then withdrew. Only by throwing butter, lard and bacon into the boilers was it possible for the crew of the Albemarle to raise enough steam to return to Plymouth.

Other related resources:

• The Civil War on NCpedia
• The North Civil War Experience from N.C. Historic Sites
• North Carolina and the Civil War from the N.C. Museum of History
• The North Carolina Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee
• Civil War in Coastal North Carolina from N.C. Historical Publications

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

North Carolina’s Last Duels

On May 3, 1856, the last recorded duel among North Carolinians, and one of the last duels in the South, was fought. Joseph Flanner and William Crawford Wilkings, both of Wilmington, battled just across the border in South Carolina. The duel resulted in Wilkings’ death.

Dueling was relatively rare in the colonial South, though British and French officers made the practice more popular in the region during the Revolutionary War. The first recorded duel was fought between two British naval officers in Brunswick in March 1765. The first recorded duel between native North Carolinians was fought in Wilmington in July 1787.

The practice reached its peak popularity in the early 1800s with the famed Stanly-Spaight Duel in which John Stanley killed former governor Richard Dobbs Spaight. The General Assembly reacted to the incident by banning dueling. The law was largely unenforced, and the state’s political elites continuing to use duels to resolve rivalries into the second half of the 19^th century. Gradually though, public opinion began to shift against duels and the practice faded into history.

Read more about dueling on NCpedia.

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Discovery of Calcium Carbide Process

A portrait of James T. Morehead held by the N.C. Museum of History

On May 2, 1892, in Spray (now Eden), Canadian chemist Thomas L. Willson accidentally produced calcium carbide and acetylene with an electric-arc furnace. In August, Willson applied for a patent for the new process.

By 1897, acetylene was competing with electricity in providing lighting, especially in rural areas and those places where gasoline was unavailable. Portable acetylene generators provided light to mines, bicycles, automobiles and railroads. Willson developed the acetylene gas buoy as a maritime navigational aid that was used worldwide. Oxygen was also combined with acetylene to allow for faster welding and cutting of metals.

In August 1894, Willson and business partner James Turner Morehead sold the patents for utilizing calcium and acetylene in lighting to the Electrogas Company but kept the manufacturing rights. That same month, Morehead, using borrowed money, completed the first commercial calcium carbide plant by expanding the Spray operation. The plant burned in 1896. Morehead later built a larger plant in Virginia. A factory in West Virginia made ferro-alloys using methods developed at Spray. Morehead eventually sold the rights to the Union Carbide Company, which was formed in 1898. That company eventually became Union Carbide Corporation. It was acquired by Dow Chemical in 2001.

Read more about North Carolina inventions on NCpedia.

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.