ELIZABETH CITY
Six new markers in Elizabeth City will briefly describe Civil War events here, including a courthouse fire set by locals and guerrillas who killed an officer and his family.
A program recognizing the markers will take place at 10 a.m. today at Waterfront Park. Part of the national Civil War Trails self-guided tours, the Elizabeth City markers will be located at Waterfront Park, Main Street, Colonial Avenue and Poindexter Street.
"The Civil War is remembered for the great battles and the brilliant strategies of the generals that directed both armies," Don Pendergraft, exhibit design chief for the Museum of the Albemarle, said in a news release. "These markers are dedicated to the everyday people at home who struggled and endured the atrocities of war."
In 1862, Union ships entered the Pasquotank River, defeated a small band of Confederate ships known as the Mosquito Fleet, and took Elizabeth City.
A few locals persuaded departing Confederate troops to set fire to the town rather than have it fall into enemy hands. Union sympathizers extinguished the flames, but not before the courthouse and about two-thirds of the small town burned.
Confederate guerrillas clashed with local Union sympathizers and troops while the Union occupied Elizabeth City from 1862 to 1865. In 1863, a Union lieutenant was moving his family into town when guerrillas attacked and killed him, his pregnant wife and 4-year-old daughter. A guerrilla prisoner was executed afterward.
Speakers at today's dedication will include Pendergraft; Chris Meekins, an Elizabeth City historian with the North Carolina Division of Archives and History; Barbara Snowden, a local historian and member of the North Carolina Historical Commission; Russ Haddad, director of tourism development for North Carolina Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development; and Mitch Bowman, Civil War Trails director.
Jeff Hampton, (252) 338-0159, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com
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