The Last Battleground: The Civil War Comes to North Carolina

To understand the long march of events in North Carolina from secession to surrender is to understand the entire Civil War — a personal war waged by Confederates and Unionists, free blacks and the enslaved, farm women and plantation belles, Cherokees and mountaineers, conscripts and volunteers, gentleman officers and poor privates. In the state’s complex loyalties, its sprawling and diverse geography, and its dual role as a home front and a battlefield, North Carolina embodies the essence o...