Chronology

James Johnston Pettigrew begins his schooling in Hillsborough

Pettigrew was sent from New Bern to Orange County and attended Hillsborough schools from 1836, studying under Mr. Bingham for about four years before he entered the university. At fourteen he lived in the family of a Hillsborough physician and read in his medical books.

People: James Johnston Pettigrew · William James Bingham

Pettigrew graduates first in his class and is offered a post at the Naval Observatory

Pettigrew finished at the head of the class of 1847, sharing first distinction with Matt W. Ransom. Struck by his graduating oration, President Polk, Navy Secretary Mason and Lieutenant Maury invited him to become an assistant at the observatory in Washington, where he worked for six or eight months.

People: Matt W. Ransom · James K. Polk

The university catalogue counts 430 students at the close of 1859-60

At the end of the 1859-60 year the university listed 430 students, 245 of them from North Carolina and the rest from across the South and as far as California. Swain later cited the figure to show how quickly the war emptied the college.

David L. Swain writes William A. Graham urging a move to end the war

Before daylight at Chapel Hill, university president Swain wrote to Graham at Hillsborough proposing that the two of them meet Governor Vance in Raleigh and press for steps to spare the state, its capital and the university. Graham answered that evening that Southern independence was hopeless and asked Swain to stop at his house on the way.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 150 events

People: David L. Swain · William A. Graham

Swain and Graham agree on a peace plan at Graham's Hillsborough house

Swain spent the day at Graham's house in Hillsborough, where Graham wrote out a four-point plan calling for the legislature to meet and seek peace talks with the United States, and for the governor to ask Sherman for a halt to fighting. Swain carried it to Raleigh by the morning train, and Vance agreed to try it if General Johnston consented.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 150 events

People: William A. Graham · David L. Swain · Zebulon B. Vance

Graham and Swain bring Governor Vance word of Lee's surrender at Hillsborough

Returning from Raleigh with Sherman's invitation and safe conduct for the governor, Graham and Swain reached Hillsborough on the evening of April 14 and found Vance waiting in Graham's parlor. Neither Vance nor General Hampton had yet heard that Lee had surrendered. Vance chose to answer a summons from Jefferson Davis and left for Greensboro the next morning instead of going back to Raleigh.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 150 events

People: Zebulon B. Vance · William A. Graham · David L. Swain

Johnston's retreating infantry marches through Chapel Hill

On Friday, April 14, divisions of Confederate infantry passed through Chapel Hill at a quick step without halting, bound west toward Greensboro. That afternoon General Wheeler rode in from the Raleigh road and knelt at a street corner with his staff to study a map of the state while townspeople watched.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 150 events

Swain returns to Chapel Hill with word of Lee's surrender

Swain got back to Chapel Hill on the morning of Saturday, April 15, and found Wheeler's cavalry camped in the village. He brought the first sure news of Lee's surrender to the troopers there, some of them former students of the university.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 150 events

People: David L. Swain

A mortally wounded soldier from Selma, Alabama, dies in a Chapel Hill doctor's house

A Confederate soldier from Selma, Alabama, wounded in the fighting east of the village, was carried to the house of one of Chapel Hill's leading physicians and nursed for two or three days. He died after the Union troops arrived and was buried in the garden there.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 150 events

Chapel Hill families feed paroled soldiers of Lee's army walking home

During the Union occupation, unarmed men from Lee's army passed through Chapel Hill on foot, alone or in small groups, each carrying only his parole. Residents called them in to eat, and Spencer adds that Union soldiers who met them also gave them food.

Part of Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865 · 150 events

Some freed household workers in Chapel Hill ask to be paid

Once Union troops held the village, the people held in slavery in Chapel Hill households were free. Spencer, writing from the employers' side, says that in one or two households they asked to be paid in coin, and that domestic work mostly went on but was understood on both sides to be voluntary.

Spencer records Chapel Hill prices in Confederate money on the eve of surrender

In the days before word of Richmond's fall reached the village, a yard of country jeans cost $25, calico $30 a yard, a bushel of meal $25, and having a tooth pulled $10, all in Confederate notes. Spencer notes that girls still met to knit socks for soldiers.

The university keeps up morning and evening prayers through the Union occupation

When Union cavalry took Chapel Hill, ten or twelve students, most of them village boys, were still keeping the college going. A professor rang the bell and prayers were held morning and evening while the troops stayed, though the two or three students from other counties walked home.

Part of The end of the Civil War in Orange County, 1865 · 30 events

Spencer counts thirty-five Chapel Hill men dead in Confederate service

Spencer reckoned that thirty-five young men of the village died in the war, up from the fifteen in Swain's count of October 1863. Four companies were raised in and around the town, and the first left in 1861 with the Orange Light Infantry.