Burnsville reflected divided loyalties in western North Carolina during the Civil War. Yancey County was evenly split over secession, and in January 1861 secession supporters in the town square burned an effigy of Congressman Zebulon B. Vance after he urged caution in response to Lincoln’s election, prompting his defenders to threaten retaliation. After North Carolina seceded, many local men joined Confederate companies such as the Black Mountain Boys, while a few entered Federal service, and the mountains became a refuge for deserters from both sides. In September 1863 Governor Vance appointed John W. McElroy to command the western home guard brigade to keep order and enforce Confederate conscription, though McElroy had already warned that many would flee to the mountains before going to war. He moved his headquarters from this house to Madison County in September 1863, but in his absence on April 9, 1864, about 50 Yancey County women seized about sixty bushels of government wheat from a storehouse. The next day, McElroy reported that about 75 local renegades under Montraville Ray entered Burnsville, surprised the guard, broke open the magazine, and carried off all the arms and ammunition. Colonel John B. Palmer soon brought 250 Confederate infantrymen and attacked Ray’s force, capturing 15 men and destroying Ray family property, after which McElroy reestablished his headquarters there. In April 1865, in one of the last local acts of violence of the war, Unionists near Burnsville shot and killed the Reverend Sam Byrd, whose son was a captain in McElroy’s home guard.