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Local figure

James Bennitt

James Bennitt was a farmer who settled in 1846 with his wife Nancy and their three children on a 325-acre place on the Hillsborough Road, then in Orange County. He also worked as a tailor and cobbler and sold feed, plug tobacco and liquor. In April 1865 generals William T. Sherman and Joseph E. Johnston met three times in his farmhouse and signed the surrender there. He died in 1878.

Source: NCpedia: Bennett Place

Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to James Bennitt. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about James Bennitt’s life and work.

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 3 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Sherman and Johnston first meet at the Bennitt farm on the Hillsborough Road William T. Sherman and Joseph E. Johnston met midway between their lines on the Hillsborough Road, seven miles from Durham Station, and moved to James Bennitt's nearby farmhouse. Before talks began Sherman showed Johnston a telegram announcing President Lincoln's assassination; Sherman offered military terms only, and Johnston asked for terms of a permanent peace. People: Joseph E. Johnston, James BennittSearch the index · NC Historic Sites: Bennett Place, History
  2. Johnston accepts Sherman's basis of agreement at the Bennitt farm At their second meeting at James and Nancy Bennitt's farm on the Hillsborough Road, then in Orange County, Joseph E. Johnston accepted the "basis of agreement" William T. Sherman submitted, which offered an armistice, disbanding of the armies, recognition of state governments and a general amnesty. Jefferson Davis approved the terms, but Washington rejected them. People: William T. Sherman, James BennittSearch the index · NC Historic Sites: Bennett Place, History
  3. Johnston surrendered to Sherman at the Bennett farm, then in Orange County After meetings on April 17 and 18 whose terms Washington rejected, Joseph E. Johnston and William T. Sherman met again at the farm of James and Nancy Bennitt and signed a military surrender covering forces in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. North Carolina Historic Sites describes the Bennitt farm as a 325 acre place in Orange County, on the Hillsborough road west of Durham Station. People: Joseph E. Johnston, William T. Sherman, James BennittNorth Carolina Historic Sites: Bennett Place, History

Named with them in the chronology

People named in the same dated entries as James Bennitt, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

Background on Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865

These works give background on Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–1865, the wider story this person is part of (475 works in all). Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Sparrows' Nest of Letters

2011

Letters of the Sparrow family, including Thomas Sparrow and George Attmore Sparrow, gathered and published in 2011. The correspondence includes material associated with the Hillsboro' Military Academy, which opened in Hillsborough in 1859, and combines family and military history.

Undaunted heart : the true story of a Southern belle & a Yankee general

Barile, Suzy · 2009

Suzy Barile's account of Eleanor Hope Swain, daughter of the University of North Carolina's president, and Smith D. Atkins, the Union general whose troops occupied Chapel Hill in April 1865; the two married later that year. Published by Eno in Hillsborough in 2009, 237 pages with illustrations and portraits.

Soldiering for glory : the Civil War letters of Colonel Frank Schaller, twenty-second Mississippi Infantry

Schaller, Frank · 2007 · University of South Carolina Press

Civil War letters of Colonel Frank Schaller of the 22nd Mississippi Infantry, combining personal narrative with regimental history. Schaller was associated with the Hillsboro Military Academy in Hillsborough. Published by the University of South Carolina Press in 2007. 185 pages with six pages of plates and illustrations.

To prepare our sons for all the duties that may lie before them : the Hillsborough Military Academy and military education in antebellum North Carolina

Ross, Stephen A. (Stephen Anthony) · 2002

Stephen A. Ross's study of the Hillsborough Military Academy and military education in North Carolina before the Civil War, dated 2002. An article-length piece of 27 pages with illustrations and portraits.

UNC

Notice -- tax in kind ; Notice -- Confederate tax

2000 · Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Two Confederate tax notices of 1864 addressed to Orange County, one on the tax in kind and one on the Confederate tax, reproduced in an electronic edition by the university library at Chapel Hill in 2000 within the Documenting the American South collection The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865. The titles come from the captions, since the originals had no title page. Topics include property tax, tax assessment and tax collection in Orange County during the Civil War.

The final fifteen days, excerpts from the "Narrative of military operations," by General Joseph Eggleston Johnston

1940 · General Johnston Headquarters House?

Folded leaflet issued at Hillsborough in 1940, printing excerpts from General Joseph E. Johnston's 'Narrative of military operations' on the final fifteen days of the Civil War in North Carolina, the period of his surrender negotiations with Sherman in April 1865. Its first page announces the opening of the restored house near Hillsborough that served as Johnston's headquarters that year. One sheet of four pages with illustrations.

UNC
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Son Of Carolina

Long, Augustus White · 1939 · Duke University Press

Augustus White Long's memoir of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina from 1865 to 1900, including higher education in the decades after the Civil War. Published by Duke University Press in 1939 in the series A segment of the American scene. 280 pages.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1940), The William and Mary Quarterly (1940), Journal of American History (1940).

The University of North Carolina in the Civil War

Weeks, Stephen Beauregard · 1896 · Wm. Ellis Jones, Steam Book and Job Printer

Stephen Beauregard Weeks's address on the University of North Carolina in the Civil War, delivered at the centennial celebration of the institution's opening on June 5, 1895, and reprinted from volume 24 of the Southern Historical Society Papers. Printed in Richmond by Wm. Ellis Jones in 1896, 38 pages. It treats the university and the state in the war of 1861 to 1865 and the campus in the nineteenth century.

The last ninety days of the war in North-Carolina

Spencer, Cornelia Phillips · 2005 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Cornelia Phillips Spencer's account of the closing weeks of the Civil War in North Carolina, reissued in 2005 as an electronic edition by the University Library at UNC-Chapel Hill. Topics include the 1865 campaigns, Sherman's march through the Carolinas, Stoneman's raid, and the history of Chapel Hill and the university in the nineteenth century, where Spencer, 1825 to 1908, spent her working life.

A card to the voters of Orange County

Leathers, Jas. S. · 2000 · Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

A campaign address printed in 1864 by Jas. S. Leathers, appealing to the voters of Orange County during the Civil War. The Confederate imprint belongs to the wartime politics of the county and the state. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill produced this electronic edition in 2000 for its Documenting the American South collection on the Southern homefront.

Kimberly family papers

Kimberly, John, 1817-1882 · 2000 · Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Letters of the Kimberly family of Chapel Hill, written during the Civil War and issued in 2000 as an electronic edition in the Documenting the American South project of the university library, within its Southern Homefront collection. The sections cover the Union invasion, disease and death, the homefront and morale, with page images of the originals. Kristofer Ray transcribed and annotated the letters.

Documenting the American South : primary resources for the study of Southern history, literature and culture.

1996 · Academic Affairs Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Documenting the American South, the digital library begun in 1996 by the UNC Chapel Hill Academic Affairs Library, gathers primary sources on the history, literature and culture of the South from colonial times into the early 1900s. Its collections include the first century of the University of North Carolina, antebellum student writings, oral histories, first-person narratives, Southern literature, 'North American Slave Narratives', the Civil War home front, the Black church in the South, the North Carolina experience and North Carolinians in the First World War.

Research sources

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Collections and databases

  • NC LIVE: prepared search for James Bennitt Library card An advanced search of the state’s shared databases already scoped to Orange County’s places and this subject; edit it freely, and sign in through your North Carolina library to read
  • Ancestry Library Edition In the libraryOrange County Public Library Census, birth, death and marriage records, and more, free on the public computers at OCPL libraries

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