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Albemarle Civil War Exhibit

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Explore Under Both Flags: Civil War in the Albemarle

Now Open, Exhibition Coincides with 150th Anniversary of Civil War in North Carolina

Museum of the Albemarle visitors can learn the stories of Tar Heel residents who lived, fought and endured the Civil War when they explore Under Both Flags: Civil War in the Albemarle, now open in Elizabeth City, N.C. To coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and the Union occupation of North Carolina, the exhibit provides a meaningful—and often untold—history lesson.

“The museum hopes to enlighten our guests of the things they don’t know about the Civil War, specifically the personal experiences of our ancestors and how they dealt with war on a daily basis,” said Don Pendergraft, Museum of the Albemarle exhibit design chief. “This is not the Civil War history that is taught in classrooms, but a deeper, more personal history of the war that was fought here at home.”

The exhibit focuses on a relatively unknown chapter of Union occupation in Elizabeth City and the adjacent counties surrounding the Albemarle Sound. Known as “the terrible time,” the period 1862 to 1865 proved to be a divisive time for residents who were split between the warring actions of the Union supporters and the Confederate sympathizers. Aptly-named Under Both Flags, the exhibition is based on first-person accounts of the people who experienced the war on the Albemarle home front and relays the stories of residents impacted by military actions of capturing and blockading the coast and port towns, ensuing battles, occupation by Union troops, civil unrest, guerilla warfare and freedom for enslaved people.

The museum is showcasing individual stories using touch-screen audio exhibits, in which Albemarle-area residents portray these individuals through recorded readings. Visitors will learn about Confederate Capt. Tristrim Skinner and his wife Eliza, of Edenton, whose letters to each other speak of household concerns, the war and feelings of the heart. They will discover Allen Parker, a slave who fled a Chowan County plantation and escaped to Worcester, Mass., where he wrote a book about his life, Recollections of Slavery Times. And they will be privy to the agricultural demise of the region in remarks made by Rep. Peyton T Henry, of Bertie County, to the N.C. House of Commons.

The exhibit also features a video portraying life in the region prior to the Civil War; artifacts including Confederate flags captured during the Civil War by Massachusetts Union solders (on loan from the Board of Trustees of the Worcester Grand Army of the Republic); and personal items, period dress, portraits and photographs.

Of special interest are the built environments for Under Both Flags. Museum-goers will observe an authentic period parlor with a fireplace and staircase from the Theophilus White House, which dates to 1735, from Perquimans County; see a sculptural portrait of Isaac Byrum, a well-known Chowan County soldier who was wounded at Gettysburg; and inspect a scene from an Army encampment. Children can get hands-on in the field pack lifting station to weigh the muskets, backpacks and canteens that the soldiers carried during wartime.

The northeastern regional branch of the North Carolina Museum of History, the Museum of the Albemarle interprets the history of 13 counties in northeastern North Carolina, considered by many to be the birthplace of English America. Admission is free. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For information, call (252) 335-1453 or visit at www.museumofthealbemarle.com and on Facebook

Elizabeth City Civil War Trails
Visitors to Elizabeth City can embark on a self-guided tour of six historical markers featured in Civil War Trails, a national program that links Civil War battlegrounds and sites in 28 states and more than 800 interpretative markers in Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee and North Carolina. Get details and download the self-guided tour brochure.