During the Civil War, Laurinburg was a stop on the Wilmington, Charlotte, & Rutherford Railroad. In the final days of the war, as Union forces besieged Fort Fisher and moved on Wilmington in hopes of closing the last open Confederate port, many Wilmington residents relocated to Laurinburg in hopes of continuing to use the railway and yards there. Those hopes ended when Union Gen. William T. Sherman's army entered the state just south of Laurinburg, placing the town between the Federals and their target at Fayetteville. Within hours, Sherman's forces destroyed the railyard, depot facilities, and shops there, as well as several miles of track on either side of town. Earlier in the war, when the newly formed Confederate government called for soldiers in the summer of 1861, many men from Laurinburg and the surrounding area enlisted. A company called the Scotch Boys, Company F of the 16th North Carolina Infantry, mustered in Laurinburg and became noted for extraordinary height: of 94 officers and men, 60 were more than 6 feet tall, and the company's average height was 6 feet 1 and 3/8 inches.