Civil War Trails Guide Released

RALEIGH, NC -- The North Carolina Division of Tourism, Film & Sports Development today unveiled a new statewide Civil War Trails guide to enhance the travel experience throughout the war's 150th anniversary observance.

The guide maps the war from Roanoke Island to Robbinsville with markers at 232 sites in 78 counties. Words and images capture historic moments at the scene of major battles, guerrilla fighting and steadfast resistance between 1861 and 1865. Stories unfold at field hospitals, cemeteries and the Salisbury Confederate Prison with stops at museums and other sites to advance visitors' understanding of the vital role the state played in the war.

"This new Civil War Trails guide will help visitors appreciate the different layers of North Carolina's involvement in the Civil War," said Lynn D. Minges, Assistant Commerce Secretary for Tourism, Marketing and Global Branding. "The military aspect alone is interesting, but that's only part of the story."

Using the guide, a traveler can shadow Sherman's Carolinas campaign to its conclusion in Durham or follow Gen. John G. Foster's raids on the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, known as "the lifeline of the Confederacy." The trail covers coastal and eastern conquests of sounds, rivers, canals and finally Wilmington. Raids by Gen. George Stoneman's cavalry dot the map from Tennessee to Salisbury while other western sites note actions by Col. William H. Thomas' legion of Cherokee Indians and mountaineers.

Other dimensions of the war emerge in markers for William Henry Singleton, who escaped slavery and served with the U.S. Colored Troops, and Union sympathizer Sarah Malinda Pritchard Blalock, who fought with her husband in the Confederate army (both became Union partisan fighters). New markers in Alamance County note the site of Freedom's Hill Church, where Wesleyan Methodists stood against slavery, and a Kenansville raid in which hundreds of pounds of bacon were burned along with supplies.

Civil War Trails is a national project that maps sites in 30 states. In North Carolina, the $1.3 million program represents years of work by the state departments of Commerce, Cultural Resources and Transportation. It was funded by a federal Transportation Enhancements Grant with matching funds from local communities.

The first edition was released in 2005, right before the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Bentonville, and expanded in 2007. The latest version adds 62 markers in a dozen counties.

North Carolina Civil War Trails brochures will be available at all nine state Welcome Centers and Department of Transportation visitor centers by this Friday.