American Civil War and final days of the Confedera


Although Guilford County did not vote for secession, once North Carolina joined the Confederacy some citizens joined the Confederate cause, forming such infantry units as the Guilford Grays. From 1861 to March 1865 the city was relatively untouched by the American Civil War, with the exception of dealing with shortages of clothing, medicines, and other items caused by the US naval blockade of the South. However, in the final weeks of the war Greensboro played a significant role. In April 1865 General P.G.T. Beauregard was instructed by the commanding officer of the Army of Tennessee, General Joseph E. Johnston, to prepare for a defense of the city. During this time, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the remaining members of the Confederate cabinet had evacuated the Confederate Capital in Richmond, Virginia, and moved south to Danville, Virginia. When Union cavalry threatened Danville, Davis and his cabinet managed to escape by train and reassembled in Greensboro on April 11, 1865. While in Greensboro, Davis and his cabinet decided to try to escape overseas to avoid capture by the victorious Union forces; they left Greensboro and separated. As such, Greensboro is notable as the last place the entire Confederate government met as a group, and Greensboro is thus the "final" capital city of the Confederacy.[12] At nearly the same time, Governor Zebulon B. Vance fled the capital of North Carolina in anticipation of the arrival of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman.[13] For a brief period beginning April 16, 1865, the capital of North Carolina was maintained in Greensboro.[14] After the negotiations were completed at Bennett Place, now in present day Durham, North Carolina, between General Johnston and General Sherman on April 26, 1865, Confederate soldiers stacked their arms and received their paroles in Greensboro, and then headed for home.










Dieser Artikel basiert auf dem Artikel Greensboro, North Carolina aus der freien Enzyklopädie Wikipedia und steht unter der Doppellizenz Seite/lokale-fdl.txt GNU-Lizenz für freie Dokumentation und Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported (Kurzfassung). In der Wikipedia ist eine Liste der Autoren verfügbar.