New Bern and the Civil War


Book Description

New Bern was a valuable port city during the Civil War and the Confederates made many attempts to reclaim it. On March 14, 1862, Federal forces under the command of General Ambrose Burnside overwhelmed Confederate forces in the Battle of New Bern, capturing the town and its important seaport. From that time on, Confederates planned to retake the city. D.H. Hill and James J. Pettigrew made the first attempt but failed miserably. General George Pickett tried in February 1864. He nearly succeeded but called the attack off on the edge of victory. The Confederates made another charge in May led by General Robert Hoke. They had the city surrounded with superior forces when Lee called Hoke back to Richmond and ended the expedition. Author Jim White details the chaotic history of New Bern in the Civil War.




Crafting Lives


Book Description

From the colonial period onward, black artisans in southern cities--thousands of free and enslaved carpenters, coopers, dressmakers, blacksmiths, saddlers, shoemakers, bricklayers, shipwrights, cabinetmakers, tailors, and others--played vital roles in their communities. Yet only a very few black craftspeople have gained popular and scholarly attention. Catherine W. Bishir remedies this oversight by offering an in-depth portrayal of urban African American artisans in the small but important port city of New Bern. In so doing, she highlights the community's often unrecognized importance in the history of nineteenth-century black life. Drawing upon myriad sources, Bishir brings to life men and women who employed their trade skills, sense of purpose, and community relationships to work for liberty and self-sufficiency, to establish and protect their families, and to assume leadership in churches and associations and in New Bern's dynamic political life during and after the Civil War. Focusing on their words and actions, Crafting Lives provides a new understanding of urban southern black artisans' unique place in the larger picture of American artisan identity.




Not a Soldier, But a Scoundrel


Book Description

Biography of a New Yorker who fought in the U.S. Civil War who made a hero of himself by leading a troop of North Carolina Unionists. He was infamous in eastern North Carolina for looting and burning cities and homes. Later he was an officer in the Tenth Cavalry, was court-martialed, and became an outlaw, dying in Colorado from a town fed up with his type.




Memories of New Bern


Book Description




New Bern History 101


Book Description

“Entertaining, funny, highly readable..." Here's what you'll discover in New Bern History 101: -Why New Bern bears stick out their tongues.-Once and for all, what a Palatine is.-Where all the local Indians went.-The Richard Dobbs Spaight “autopsy.” -How New Bern and sideburns are connected.-The ghost Baron DeGraffenried saw.-The “explosive” cabbage of Tryon Palace.-How Pepsi's inventor lost his company.-Why and how the Yankees took New Bern.-The local treasures unearthed in Venezuela.




New Bern


Book Description

Baron Christopher de Graffenried and his group of Swiss and German settlers founded the town of New Bern at the confluence of the Trent and Neuse Rivers in 1710 and named it after his Swiss hometown; at the time, they did not realize that this town, nearly 300 years later, would grow into one of the Southeast's most desired places to live. Through the 20th century, New Bern was transformed from a sleepy Southern town to a growing retirement community with a thriving tourism industry. Among the cards presented in New Bern are these cover images of two of the grandest homes in the area: one gone forever and the other preserved as part of a state historic site.




Bern Book


Book Description

The Bern Book is a travelogue, a memoir, a “diary of an isolated soul” (Darryl Pinckney), and a meditation on the myth and reality of race in midcentury Europe and America. In 1953, having left the US and settled in Bern, Switzerland, Vincent O. Carter, a struggling writer, set about composing a “record of a voyage of the mind.” The voyage begins with Carter’s furiously good-humored description of how, every time he leaves the house, he must face the possibility of being asked “the hated question” (namely, Why did you, a black man born in America, come to Bern?). It continues with stories of travel, war, financial struggle, the pleasure of walking, the pain of self-loathing, and, through it all, various experiments in what Carter calls “lacerating subjective sociology.” Now this long-neglected volume is back in print for the first time since 1973.




A Templar's Journey


Book Description

WR Chagnon and contributing editor Judith Anne Chagnon, a brother-and-sister team, have a family history that stretches back to Clovis' court. Chip, a US Army veteran with 35 years of service, channeled his love of all things medieval to create the trilogy. Judith, a journalism graduate of Suffolk University, began her writing career with the Eagle-Tribune newspaper in Massachusetts. Together these Francophiles have created a novel that explores daily Templar life from the inside out. They are already working on the final book in the series, A Templar's Journey: The Final Glory. A handsome young squire of the Knights of the Templar continues to seek redemption from eternal damnation by continuing his quest in the Holy Land. Set against the backdrop of the Crusades in the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1186-87, this sequel to A Templar's Journey: The Squire from Champagne, finds Squire Roland once again risking his life to fight for Christianity and its followers in the lands of the infidels. Now serving as councilor to the grand master of the Temple, the danger has only escalated for Roland, who developed new skills of warfare and intrigue during the first leg of his quest. He is again accompanied by staunch allies: a man known as the best knight to have entered the Templar Order, a Celtic soldier known for his combat ability and his unholy ways within the order, a brutal, street-smart warrior, and a Jewish physician who also serves as a master spy and counter spy. Although he prepares to battle in the name of the Lord, Roland cannot help but fall in love with the beautiful Lady Marie of Baux, who loves him in return just as strongly. Danger and intrigue-from his enemies in the Holy Land and those within the Knights of the Templar-will shape his destiny in a land made darker by the shadows of Islam's crescent moon.