Laurinburg

During the Civil War, Laurinburg was a stop on the Wilmington, Charlotte and Rutherford Railroad. Near the end of the conflict, as Union forces besieged Fort Fisher and closed in on Wilmington, the port city's railyards were relocated here to a site about three blocks away, and some of Wilmington's citizens also fled here. On March 7, 1865, advance elements of Union Gen. William T. Sherman's army entered North Carolina from South Carolina and struck Laurinburg that afternoon, destroying the rail yard, depot, and shops, as well as several miles of track east and west of town, before a detachment of the 5th Tennessee Cavalry moved northeast after witnessing the destruction. Earlier in the war, when the Confederate government called for soldiers in June 1861, several companies were organized nearby, including the Scotch Boys, Co. F, 18th N.C. Infantry Regiment, commanded first by Capt. Charles Malloy and composed of 96 local men; Co. D, 46th Infantry, commanded by Capt. Colin Stewart and including 87 local men; and the Pee Dee Guards, which formed Co. D, 23rd N.C. Infantry. These regiments served in Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia from 1862 until the end of the war and also under Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson in 1862-1863, surrendering with Lee at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

Laurinburg, North Carolina · United States