- Title
- North Carolina historical review [1941 : October]
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-
- Date
- October 1941
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
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North Carolina historical review [1941 : October]
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The North Carolina
Historical Review
Volume XVIII
October, 1941 Number 4
GOVERNOR VANCE AND THE END OF THE WAR
IN NORTH CAROLINA
By Richard E. Yates
When Zebulon B. Vance was reelected to the governorship
of North Carolina in August, 1864, he had ample reason to
be proud of his achievement. By an overwhelming majority
he had defeated William W. Holden, the “peace candidate, ”
and the ominous peace movement which he led. “ I have
beaten him,” Vance said proudly, worse than any man was
ever beaten in North Carolina. 1,1 But as the popular young
governor surveyed the condition of the Southern cause, he
found much to depress him. By little more than a mere
skirmish line, Lee was holding Grant’s large army before
Petersburg; and the Army of the Tennessee under Hood was
being pressed back to Atlanta by the persistent Sherman.
Before the well trained, fully equipped armies of the United
States, the Confederate forces were quickly wasting away.
Death and disease took thousands who could not be re¬
placed; and thousands more, despairing for the cause and
sick of the war, deserted from the armies and flocked to the
mountains, where many of them lived a life of robbery and
murder.
Realizing that the South’s only chance for success lay in
increasing its armed forces, Governor Vance made energetic
efforts to fill the rapidly dwindling North Carolina regiments.
On the basis of orders issued by General Lee, he published
a proclamation in August, 1864, promising that all deserters
who returned voluntarily within thirty days would receive
only a nominal punishment. But he warned all who refused
to comply with those terms “that the utmost power of this
1 Vance to Alexander Collie, August 5, 18C4. Vance Letter Book, IT, 219-221. (A copy of theorigina*
Letter Book, and all manuscript sources used in this study, are in the archives of the North Carolina
Historical Commission, Raleigh.)
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