Discover Rowan's Confederate History

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 On July 9th 1861, six weeks after North Carolina seceded from the Union, the Confederate States government asked Governor Henry T. Clark if the State could provide a place to hold prisoners of war. The 20-year-old Maxwell Chambers Cotton Mill in Salisbury, then vacant, was hurriedly fitted for that purpose. Later on December 9th, 120 prisoners transferred from the Raleigh State Fairgrounds were the first prisoners to enter the Salisbury Prison which would begin its legacy as the only POW site in North Carolina.

 The prison population increased to about 1,400 by late May 1862, when the inmates were paroled and returned to the Union. These POWs lived in relative comfort, passing the time by making trinkets, playing baseball, and even engaging in theatrical productions. After their departure, POWs at Salisbury Prison were outnumbered by Yankee deserters and dissident Confederates. This period of "normalcy" suddenly ended in early October 1864, when 10,000 prisoners began arriving at a facility that was intended to hold only 2,500. This huge increase, which resulted from the fall of Atlanta and the ongoing siege of Richmond, made it easier for the Union army to rescue its POWs. Salisbury received some of the Richmond prisoners, and after October 1864, the majority of newly captured Union POWs.  

The Garrison House in Salisbury is the only surviving structure of the Confederate Prison that was spared by the destruction of the former Maxwell Chambers Cotton Mill through Stoneman's Raid on April 12th, 1865 when US Major General George Stoneman burned all Confederate government facilities in the city.

The 1840s cabin house served as a barracks  for Confederate Prison Guards and housed the various divisions that occupied and operated the facility from North Carolina, Alabama and the Senior Reserves local to Salisbury.

This house and the National Cemetery are the only maintained historic sites that remain from the Confederate Prison today and serve as a reminder to locals and tourists of the importance of Salisbury to the Confederacy and to the North Carolina Republic as a railroad hub with two junctions.

A historical marker is maintained at the Garrison House and designates the property as a historic site for the City of Salisbury next to the property beside the railroad bridge.

Next to the house along the railroad once lied the remains to tunnels that were dug by POW's who escaped from the prison and vanished into the city to refuge in local households.

The original Salisbury National Cemetery is a historic site nestled between the North Carolina Railroad and residential neighborhoods that once made up the former Confederate Prison and surrounding farmland on the outskirts of the City of Salisbury. This Cemetery has been added onto to make additional room for burials and was finally closed to new burials in 2013.

An estimated 11,700 Federal troops are buried here within 18 trenches in a consistently plotted mass grave site where a former cornfield once existed following the out of control deathly conditions of the prison and its prisoners of war who had dwindling resources, lack of medical care, smallpox cases and overpopulation issues after the United States ceased exchanges between 1864-1865 and is the #1 National Cemetery for the most unmarked graves in the Country.

The mass grave site has two Monuments next to it, one for the Maine Monument and an additional Monument to the Unknown Soldiers of the United States Military in respect to the Confederate States of America.

The Cemetery also contains Veterans from the Spanish American War, the first World War, the second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and others that followed.

 Built in 1820 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Dr. Josephus Hall House was originally constructed as classrooms for the Salisbury Female Academy (1820-1825). Since then, the house has been a major part of local history being owned by Dr. Josephus Hall and passed down through four generations of the family. 

Josephus Hall opened his home to serve as a hospital to wounded prisoners of war by the beginning of the War Between the States until Salisbury's Confederate Prison could be properly facilitated for such capacities. He would later serve as the doctor of the prison until the end of the war.

Now the house is under ownership by the Historic Salisbury Foundation who has opened its doors for Saturday tours March - December. During the tour of this incredible house, you can expect the house's story to be told, architecture to be broken down in detail and maybe even a ghost tale or two to be told. The house is also the host venue for staple, annual events in Salisbury, including October Tour and Bands on Bank Street. 

Rowan Way-side Hospital was a voluntarily operational medical center organized and maintained by local residents of the City of Salisbury to uphold community standards of fair treatment to both civilian and military bodies present in Rowan County.

Beginning operation in 1862 as one of the first hospitals of its kind while the ongoing War Between the States dug into trench warfare, this medical outpost would outgrow itself by the end of the year being positioned at the Yadkin Railroad Junction to receive the wounded from the battlefields via train.

The hospital is said to have been located along North Long Street outside of the existing township of Salisbury being nestled between that of farmland and the railway consisting of field tent facilities and storehouses.

Rowan-Wayside Hospital would serve as the predecessor to the eventual Confederate Military Hospital that would open in its place under the operation of the North Carolina Confederate Government that would aid the facilitation of Salisbury's Confederate Prison, munitions stockpile and arsenal.

 The Confederate Arsenal at Salisbury was functional as early as 1863. By that time a foundry, built by Nathaniel Boyden for the manufacture of agricultural machinery, had been converted to produce war munitions such as cannons, guns, and other arms. In the spring of 1863, the Confederate Medical Department added to the arsenal by purchasing a distillery at Salisbury that consisted of 25 acres, a 60-horsepower steam engine, a three-story rectifying house, a malt house, and a cooper shop along with three comfortable dwelling houses. 

By 1864 the original foundry was producing horseshoes and shells for Parrott guns, and in February the Confederacy established a Niter and Mining Bureau at Salisbury. In August 1864 the Confederate Congress officially named the buildings the Confederate Arsenal at Salisbury. The arsenal was destroyed by Major General George H. Stoneman and his Federal troops on April 12th, 1865.

Nathaniel Boyden would later go on to be the Mayor of the Township of Salisbury and pave the way for the Fame Confederate Monument to be installed on May 10th, 1909. He's buried in the same Old Lutheran Cemetery that Fame now stands tall within its walls today.

 Stoneman's Raid, conducted by the Union's Major General George Stoneman in late March and April of 1865, constituted one of the last military operations in the War of Northern Aggression. Stoneman's cavalry, about 6,000 strong, entered North Carolina from Tennessee in late March, intending to cut off General Robert E Lee's escape routes in the event of his expected defeat in Virginia. Moving rapidly through Boone and Wilkesboro, Stoneman veered northward into Virginia, severing rail lines around Lynchburg and Christiansburg. By  April 9th (coincidentally the day of Lee's surrender) his men were back in North Carolina. At Germanton, north of Salem, he divided his command.

One brigade under Brigadier General William J. Palmer was detailed to capture Salem and then move eastward to cut railroads north and south of Greensboro. This was done swiftly, one column burning a bridge over Reedy Fork north of Greensboro, apparently only minutes after President Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Cabinet,  fleeing Virginia, had passed over it. Other columns destroyed trains, bridges, a gun factory, and commissary stores between Greensboro and High Point. 

Still others sent to destroy rail bridges toward Lexington encountered stiff resistance and withdrew. All of this occurred on April 11th.

Meanwhile, Stoneman took the larger part of his command southward, rejoining Palmer's Brigade on April 12th at Salisbury. There they repeated the previous day's work on a much larger scale. Salisbury had become a major collection point for Confederate supplies and armaments of every kind. The Federal troops encountered resistance at Catawba College in the Battle of Grants Creek before destroying several miles of railroad track together with depots, warehouses, mills, arms and ammunition, and the recently vacated Salisbury Confederate Prison. 

The destruction consumed two days, and flames could be seen for 15 miles at night reportedly from Gold Hill and Statesville.

Constructed by contractor William Murdock between the years of 1857 and 1858, the Grants Creek Railroad Bridge played a trivial role in the transportation of goods from the central Piedmont region of North Carolina to the western portion of the State through Salisbury's Yadkin Junction under the command of the North Carolina Railroad.

On January 9th, 1865, the extant Compiled Military Service Records (CMSR) for the 2nd Mississippi Infantry Regiment show six men were detailed to accompany Colonel Stone on a recruiting trip back to Mississippi to, as Stone referenced, "round up absentees and deserters". According to Lieutenant Colonel John A. Blair's diary, Colonel Stone departed the 2nd Mississippi's Camps manning the Petersburg lines on January 18th, 1865.

As we know now, Colonel Stone, these 6 men were actually 13 men and whoever they managed to pickup to return to the regiment where they passed through Salisbury, NC when Federal Major General Stoneman attacked the town on April 12th, 1865.

This bridge would be sought after during Stoneman's Raid where Federal Major General George Stoneman would seek to destroy it to further cripple the Confederate supply lines before realizing that it was a stone structure.

Colonel Stone, ever combative, volunteered his and his men's services to help defend the town in the Battle of Salisbury. However, Stoneman overran the makeshift defenses and captured Colonel Stone at Grants Creek Bridge where Stone established a command center in present day Kelsey Scott Park.

During Stoneman's Raid, the cavalrymen invaded into Salisbury through  present day Old Mocksville Road, West Innes Street, Stateville Blvd and  Old Plank Road later conjoining at the town square to terrorize the local residents by burning belongings sought to be used to aid the Confederate war effort.

 A little known Confederate fort that was built in anticipation of Federal General George Stoneman's Raid into Piedmont North Carolina and to protect the North Carolina Railroad Bridge over the Yadkin River, Fort York is now adjacent to I-85 in Davidson County and across the Yadkin River from Rowan County.

Although historians disagree whether the earthworks began being laid in late 1864 or in early 1865, a growing concern regarding invading Yankees prompted the fort’s construction.  North Carolinians feared William T. Sherman’s approach from Georgia and South Carolina and George Stoneman’s vengeful cavalry crossing the Appalachians. 

The fort is an earthwork system of small artillery batteries connected by rifle pits.  There is an inner line (240 yards of infantry trenches and 3 artillery batteries) and an encompassing, outer line (385 yards of trenches and 4 batteries). It was constructed to protect the Railroad Bridge from being destroyed. 

Many argue that General P.G.T. Beauregard was the head engineer.  Records do indicate that he spent a day in Salisbury in March 1865.

Only one recorded military action took place at the fort.  On April 12th, 1865, three days after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox and four years after the firing on Fort Sumter, a small detachment of Union raiders fired artillery at the fort and the Confederates replied accordingly.  The formidable fort rested on a high location and the Yankees retreated after an unsuccessful afternoon of artillery fire.  They more than likely realized that the costs to overtake the Confederate camp far outweighed the benefits and that many miles of railroad track had already been destroyed.  

In the end, the bridge had been saved. And the Confederacy experienced one of its last military successes. 

Today the fort is incorporated into an ongoing project to restore the earthworks into a tourist attraction for Davidson County as part of the Yadkin River Park shared with Rowan County.

Established in 1768 by John Lewis Beard. It is located at 515 North Lee Street, Salisbury, NC, consists of 2.75 acres and is closed for burials.

John Lewis Beard had his daughter buried on his home property around 1755 because there were no public burying grounds at that time. In order to protect her resting place for years to come, he deeded a tract of land to the German Lutheran Church for the purpose of establishing a church and graveyard. His daughter’s body was moved to the cemetery, thus becoming the first cemetery in Salisbury. A little frame church was erected shortly after 1768 near the grave of Beard’s daughter and soon other graves appeared. 

There are Revolutionary and Confederate soldiers buried there along with many leading families of Rowan: Beard, Henderson, Caldwell, Brown, Murphy, Hamilton, Fisher, Locke, Boyden, Chambers, Troy and numerous others. St. John’s Lutheran Church deeded the property to the City in 1980.

Colonel Charles Fisher of the 6th North Carolina Infantry Regiment, Captain John Beard of the 57th North Carolina Infantry Regiment, Captain Leonard Henderson of the 8th North Carolina Infantry Regiment and Captain Thomas Beall of the 11th North Carolina Infantry regiment are all here in addition to many other Confederate Veterans. An estimated 200 Confederates are interred.

The Fame Confederate Monument that had stood in a median at the corner of West Innes and Church Streets in Salisbury for 111 years was moved to its permanent home within the Old Lutheran Cemetery in July 2021. 

Old English Cemetery is located at 220 North Church Street in Salisbury, NC and consists of 1.4 acres, the property was given to the City in 1794  by the British Government and is closed for burials. The first documented burial was in 1775 (Captain. Daniel Little). According to popular Revolutionary War legend, British soldiers were buried in the Cemetery in early February of 1781, dying while the army was marching through Rowan County during the “Race to the Dan.” Interred are several community leaders, Confederate soldiers, and the Confederate Governor of North Carolina, John Willis Ellis.

In addition to Governor Ellis being buried here, Frances Burton Craig also lays to rest here.  U.S. Congressman. Born near Salisbury, North Carolina, he graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1829, and then was editor and proprietor of the Western Carolinian, (1829-31). He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1832, commenced to law practice in Salisbury, North Carolina and was a member of the North Carolina State House of Representatives, (1832-34). In 1853, he was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-third Congress and to the three succeeding Congresses, serving until 1861. Shortly after his term, he introduced the ordinance of secession from the Union in the form in which it was adopted and was delegate to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States in July 1861. He died at age 64 in Concord, North Carolina. 

Chestnut Hill Cemetery, established in 1888 out of the original property of a farmstead, serves as the main Cemetery for the City of Salisbury and is home to many local Rowan County names like Overman, Beard, Boyden, Craige, Steele and Ramsey.

Located at 1134 South Main Street, Salisbury, NC, the property is still open for burials and is home to the graves of Colonel Archibald Boyden, who served as Courier for Major General Robert F. Hoke, Captain John Andrew Ramsay, who served in Co. D, 1st Regiment North Carolina Artillery, and Dr. Josephus Hall are located here in addition to  Frances Fisher Tiernan, daughter of Colonel Charles Fisher.

 Consisting of 19.3 acres, the first burials recorded were Luke Blackmer and Moses Holmes, both in 1889 where many burials followed to become the City of Salisbury's largest Cemetery which would come to attract the desire for prestigious families to be buried in such a large centralized location.