Confederate Memorial Day in Washington, NC | Eastern North Carolina Now

The Beaufort Plow Boys, Sons of Confederate Veterans will hold a Memorial Service at the Confederate Monument in Oakdale Cemetery, Saturday May 14, 2022 at 11:00 am.

Confederate Memorial Day is observed in several Southern U.S. States on various dates since the end of the Civil War to remember the estimated 258,000 Confederate Soldiers who died fighting against the Union.

It is an official state holiday in Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina; while it is commemorated in North Carolina.  It is sometimes celebrated on or near April 26, when the last major Confederate field army surrendered at Bennett Place North Carolina in 1865.

On November 21, 1789, North Carolina Became the 12^th state to ratify the United States Constitution.  In the run up to the American Civil War, North Carolina declared its secession from the Union on May 20, 1861, becoming the tenth of eleven states to join the Confederate States of America.  Following the Civil War, the State was restored to the Union on July 4, 1868.

In 1860, North Carolina was a slave state, in which one-third of the state's total population were African-American slaves. The state did not vote to join the Confederacy until President Abraham Lincoln called on it to invade its sister state South Carolina, becoming the last to officially join the Confederacy. The title of "last to join the Confederacy" has been disputed; although Tennessee's informal secession on May 7, 1861, preceded North Carolina's official secession on May 20, the Tennessee legislature did not formally vote to secede until June 8, 1861.

The first Confederate soldier to be killed in the Civil War was Private Henry Wyatt from North Carolina, in the Battle of Big Bethel in June 1861. At the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the 26th North Carolina Regiment participated in Pickett/Pettigrew's Charge and advanced the farthest into Union lines of any Confederate regiment. During the Battle of Chickamauga, the 58th North Carolina Regiment advanced farther than any other regiment on Snodgrass Hill to push back the remaining Union forces from the battlefield. At Appomattox Court House in Virginia in April 1865, the 75th North Carolina Regiment, a cavalry unit, fired the last shots of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War. The phrase "First at Bethel, Farthest at Gettysburg and Chickamauga, and Last at Appomattox", later became used through much of the early 20th century.

The Battle of Washington NC took place from March 30 to April 19, 1863, in Beaufort County, North Carolina, as part of Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's Tidewater operations during the American Civil War. This battle is sometimes referred to as the Siege of Little Washington.  (Battle of Washington in Wikipedia)

Union forces attempted to set fire to Havens Warehouse but it survived the war.  Many other parts of the town were burned.

In their book, The Genesis of the Memorial Day Holiday in America, Bellware and Gardiner assert that the national Memorial Day holiday is a direct offshoot of the observance begun by the Ladies Memorial Association of Columbus, Georgia in 1866. In a few places, most notably Columbus, Mississippi and Macon, Georgia, Union graves were decorated during the first observance. The day was even referred to as Memorial Day by The Baltimore Sun on May 8, 1866, after the ladies organization that started it. The name Confederate Memorial Day was not used until the Northern observance was initiated in 1868.

We hope that those who love our home here in Washington and Beaufort County will join in for this sacred celebration honoring those who fought for what they believed.

W.L Buzz Cayton