Women Who Riot

Please join us for a free “Second Mondays” lecture entitled “Women Who Riot” on Monday, May 13, 2013 from 10:30am to 11:30am in the Auditorium of the Archives & History Building at 109 East Jones St., Raleigh, NC. The talk will be given by Sarah Lentz, who has previously written about the Salisbury Bread Riot.

Sarah’s talk is part of the ongoing Second Mondays Lecture series sponsored by the Archives Civil War 150 Committee.

For news about other Dept. of Cultural Resources events, visit http://www.nccultureevents.com/events.php

Rare Opportunity to View Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in Raleigh

[This press release comes to us via Bill Brown, Registrar for the State Archives of North Carolina. ]

The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most significant documents in United States history. President Abraham Lincoln issued the document on Sept. 22, 1862, after the Union victory at Antietam (also called the Battle of Sharpsburg).

Signed by President Lincoln, the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation ordered that in 100 days the federal government would free all slaves in the states still rebelling against the Union. The document formally alerted the Confederacy of Lincoln’s intention. On Jan. 1, 1863, with the Confederacy still in full rebellion, the president issued the final Emancipation Proclamation.  

You will have a rare opportunity to see the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh from Wednesday, May 15, through Sunday, June 16, 2013. This historical seven-page document is on loan from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Admission is free.

The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation will be highlighted in the exhibit Freedom Coming, Freedom for All, which is presented by the North Carolina Freedom Monument Park and the North Carolina Museum of History. A second phase of the exhibit, opening July 1, will feature the 13th Amendment.

“As a milestone on the path to slavery’s final abolishment, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom,” says Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero. “We are honored to share this official Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation for the exhibit Freedom Coming, Freedom for All at the North Carolina Museum of History.”

The exhibit focuses on the status of North Carolina before the Civil War, events leading up to Lincoln’s issuance of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and outcomes of the document in the state and nation. Freedom Coming also examines the differences among the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, the final Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment.

“We are honored to join with North Carolina Freedom Monument Park and the National Archives to present Freedom Coming, which is especially relevant during the sesquicentennial of the 1863 signing of the final Emancipation Proclamation,” emphasizes Ken Howard, Director of the N.C. Museum of History. The exhibit marks the longest period the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation has been on view since 2004.

Adds Dianne Pledger, Executive Director of North Carolina Freedom Monument Park, “What we will achieve through this partnership is an exploration of the deeper ramifications of the Emancipation Proclamation and its influence on society in subsequent years. By doing so, we hope to increase historical awareness and civic engagement about the importance of freedom for all people. The Emancipation Proclamation is a reminder of our ongoing obligation to learn our history because it reminds us of our mistakes and successes.”

“Freedom Coming conveys how securing freedom for all was more of a process than a single act or proclamation, and the exhibit highlights North Carolina’s unique role in that process,” notes Earl Ijames, Curator of African American History at the N.C. Museum of History.

Phase Two of Exhibit Highlights 13th Amendment

Freedom Coming will reopen with a second phase on Monday, July 1. Phase two features original copies of the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery in the United States (except for punishment for crime) and nullified the antebellum slave codes (laws). The movie “Lincoln” centers on this life-changing document.

The N.C. Museum of History will feature the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in an exhibit opening May 15. In this photograph, visitors at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture view the historic document on loan from the National Archives, Sept. 21, 2012. Photograph by Terrence Jennings.

Phase two will be presented in two parts.

● July 1 through Oct. 6: North Carolina’s original copy of the 13th Amendment will be on view. Visitors also will see a letter from U.S. Sec. of State William Seward to Gov. Zebulon Vance about the document. Both are on loan from the State Archives of North Carolina.

In 1865 the North Carolina Constitutional Convention ratified the 13th Amendment (and 14th Amendment) in order for North Carolina to be readmitted to the Union.

● Oct. 14, 2013, through Jan. 26, 2014: The exhibit will feature Massachusetts’ copy of the 13th Amendment. After the amendment’s adoption by the U.S. House of Representatives in January 1865, members of Congress, Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin and President Lincoln signed several commemorative copies of the 13th Amendment for the U.S. Sanitary Commission. A secretary provided Lincoln’s signature. The commission sold these signed copies to raise money for sick and wounded Union soldiers. Col. Henri Crandall, the Adjutant General of Rhode Island, owned the copy that will be on view.

Traveling Version of Exhibit

On Monday, July 1, a traveling version of Freedom Coming, comprised of eight informational panels (no original documents), will be available for museums, historic sites, and other organizations across North Carolina. For more information call 919-224-0480 or e-mail info@ncfmp.org.

Major sponsors of Freedom Coming are Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina; Mechanics and Farmers Bank; News & Observer; North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities; North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company; PNC; Radio One; and Spectacular Magazine. Additional support is provided by Epiphany Public Relations of N.C., LLC; the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission and the State Archives of North Carolina.

For further information about the Museum of History, call 919-807-7900 or access ncmuseumofhistory.org or Facebook. To schedule tours for groups of 10 or more, sign up online at nccapvisit.org.

PLEASE NOTE: No photography is permitted in the exhibit. Light levels will be low.     

# # #

About the North Carolina Museum of History

The museum is located at 5 E. Edenton Street, across from the State Capitol. Parking is available in the lot across Wilmington Street. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. The Museum of History, within the Division of State History Museums, is part of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

About North Carolina Freedom Monument Park

Through beautiful public art and educational programs, North Carolina Freedom Monument Park is a community-initiated effort that will honor what freedom means to all people in North Carolina. The organization’s goals are to create and strengthen bonds among diverse people;  educate and enhance mutual understanding; and serve as a model of cooperation, respect and common values. North Carolina Freedom Monument Park, planned for completion by 2017, will honor the African American experience and affirm the struggle for freedom for all by the creation of a public art park on a large corner space near the State Legislative Building and State Library, a spot visited daily by thousands of tourists, schoolchildren and local community. For more details, go to www.ncfmp.org or Facebook.

About the National Archives and Records Administration

The National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., is an independent federal agency that preserves and shares with the public records that trace the story of our nation, government and the American people. From the Declaration of Independence to accounts of ordinary Americans, the holdings of the National Archives directly touch the lives of millions of people. The National Archives carries out its mission through a nationwide network of archives, records centers and presidential libraries, and online at www.archives.gov.

The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation is just one of the millions of Civil War records held by the National Archives. Its rich reservoir of Civil War records includes presidential telegrams, official battle reports, and correspondence between generals, but also individual soldier and sailor service records, maps, patent drawings, photographs, recruiting handbills, and petitions to Congress. The Records of the Freedmen’s Bureau document the initial transition from slavery to freedom after the war.

About the North Carolina Humanities Council

The North Carolina Humanities Council is a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National     Endowment for the Humanities. The Humanities Council serves as an advocate for lifelong learning and thoughtful dialogue about all facets of human life. It facilitates the exploration and celebration of the many voices and stories of North Carolina’s cultures and heritage. In addition

to grants, awards and publications, the Council offers the Road Scholars speakers bureau; the Let’s Talk About It library discussion series; Museum on Main Street, a traveling exhibition in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution and rural communities statewide; the Teachers Institute, a professional development program for the state’s public school educators; and Literature and Medicine, a scholar-facilitated book discussion group for hospital staff to reflect on the larger mission of medicine. To learn more about the North Carolina Humanities Council, visit http://www.nchumanities.org, or get information on Facebook and Twitter.

About the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources

The North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources (NCDCR) is the state agency with a vision to be the leader in using the state’s cultural resources to build the social, cultural and economic future of North Carolina. Led by Secretary Susan W. Kluttz, NCDCR’s mission to enrich lives and communities creates opportunities to experience excellence in the arts, history and libraries in North Carolina that will spark creativity, stimulate learning, preserve the state’s history and promote the creative economy. NCDCR was the first state organization in the nation to include all agencies for arts and culture under one umbrella.

Through arts efforts led by the North Carolina Arts Council, the North Carolina Symphony and the North Carolina Museum of Art, NCDCR offers the opportunity for enriching arts education for young and old alike and economic stimulus engines for our state’s communities. NCDCR’s Divisions of State Archives, Historical Resources, State Historic Sites and State History Museums preserve, document and interpret North Carolina’s rich cultural heritage. NCDCR’s State Library of North Carolina is the principal library of state government and builds the capacity of all libraries in our state, developing and supporting access to traditional and online collections such as genealogy and resources for the blind and physically handicapped.

NCDCR annually serves more than 19 million people through its 27 historic sites, seven history museums, two art museums, the nation’s first state-supported symphony orchestra, the State Library, the North Carolina Arts Council and the State Archives of North Carolina. NCDCR champions our state’s creative industry that accounts for more than 300,000 jobs and generates nearly $18.5 billion in revenues. For more information, please call 919-807-7300 or visit www.ncdcr.gov.

First Wednesdays – Deathbed Confessional: “I Shot Stonewall Jackson”

“I at once said who goes there?”  Or at least that’s how “Little Bill” Kirk’s version of Stonewall Jackson’s fatal wounding began.  The legend of Stonewall Jackson is one of the most enduring hallmarks of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, so much so that in post-war years there were actually several veterans claiming to be the ones to fire the “fatal shot” – perhaps looking for their own place in Confederate lore, good or bad.

The background and telling of Stonewall Jackson’s wounding has been told many times but a cursory description of the incident deserves mention here.  In May of 1863, Union Major General Joseph Hooker had devised a bold turning movement to force Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia out of its powerful works in front of Fredericksburg, Virginia.  With the majority of his Army of the Potomac, he would cross the Rappahannock River upstream and fall upon Lee’s rear, hopefully destroying Lee’s army and advancing on to Richmond.  Lee became aware of the turning movement and in turn split his forces to face the dual threats to his front and rear.  Brisk fighting in the wilderness around Chancellorsville, Virginia (actually a large mansion located at a clearing crossroads in the woods) slowed Hooker’s advance and forced his men to entrench.

Meanwhile, Major General J.E.B. Stuart’s Confederate cavalry had informed General Lee that Hooker’s right flank was exposed and vulnerable to attack.  Lee, upon conferring with Jackson, at once took it upon himself to divide his army yet again, sending Jackson’s corps on a long circuitous flank march to hit Hooker’s army in the flank.  After hours of marching, Jackson’s men furiously sprang onto Hooker’s surprised men, routing them from their position and rolling up Hooker’s line for more than a mile.  With little daylight remaining, Jackson and his staff decided to scout the enemy position to determine the feasibility of continuing the attack into the night – a rarity among Civil War battles.

Upon returning from their scout down the Plank Road (a major thoroughfare which Jackson had used as his axis of advance), Jackson’s men were hit with two successive volleys from a picket line of the 18^th North Carolina.  Jackson was hit three times – twice in the left arm and once in the right hand – while several others in the party were also killed or wounded.  Jackson would be carried to the rear where his left arm would be amputated.  He developed pneumonia after his surgery and never recovered, dying on May 10.

“Little Bill” Kirk’s version of events was recounted by A.C. Atkins, the son of a Confederate veteran.  In 1890, when Atkins was ten years old, Kirk (whose given name was not listed by Atkins) recounted to Atkins on his death bed his story of the fateful shooting.  According to Kirk, he saw a mounted man approaching in the darkness.  He inquired as to the man’s identity and twice ordered him to halt.  After the man ignored his requests, Kirk fired his rifle and felled the man.  A commotion then ensued and upon learning the identity of the wounded man Kirk “layed down and cried like a baby.”

Although Kirk’s account is fanciful and makes for entertaining reading it has been almost unanimously disregarded by historians of the battle.  A quick browsing of the Confederate rosters indicate that there were several “William” Kirks or “W” Kirks that served in North Carolina regiments, with a few even serving in the 28^th North Carolina, which belonged to the brigade involved in Jackson’s shooting.  However, it was the 18^th North Carolina which provided the guilty picket detail.  Additionally, Stonewall was hit three times in the second volley by a fusillade of bullets fired by en entire picket line at night – making it almost impossible to determine the individual(s) who fired the shots that hit the general.  Kirk’s deathbed “confessional” was almost certainly concocted in the delirium of death and the passing of many years, not to mention it relies on the word of a ten-year old child recounting his own anecdote decades after the fact.

Although it can be looked at as no more than a curiosity or an oddity and has little to no value as far as students of the battle are concerned, stories such as Kirk’s still provide insight into postwar legends and the desire for individuals to insert themselves into historical events and situations.  Men of much higher stature than Kirk (and with much sounder and healthier minds) concocted tales of almost equal fantasy in their postwar recollections and writings.  Perhaps the enduring purpose of Kirk’s confession was to some way attach himself to the immortal southern legend of Stonewall Jackson and, discredited or not, he accomplished that goal.

A link to a scan and transcription of Atkins’s reminiscence can be found at the following link:
http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm/ref/collection/p15012coll8/id/11973

The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War

[This blog post comes from a press release from the North Carolina Museum of History.]

The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War

Music was everywhere during the Civil War. It served as a powerful and meaningful influence during the nation’s crisis. Tunes rang out from parlor pianos, roused crowds at political rallies, and set the rhythms of domestic and military life. Music became an important vehicle for communicating ideas about the war, and its   lasting impression endured for decades.

Christian L. McWhirter from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., is the first person to explore what Americans actually said and did with the published songs of the time. He will share his findings during The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War on Sunday, April 28, at 2 p.m. at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh. Admission is free.

McWhirter will discuss the many ways music influenced popular culture in the years surrounding the war, and he will highlight music’s deep meaning for both whites and blacks, South and North.

By gauging the popularity of the most prominent songs and examining how Americans used them, McWhirter points out music’s central role in American life during the war.

McWhirter is the assistant editor for the Papers of Abraham Lincoln.

For more information about the Museum of History, call 919-807-7900 or access ncmuseumofhistory.org or Facebook.

April 13, 2013 Genealogy Workshop: Researching Your Civil War Ancestors

[This event reminder is a cross-posting of a GHL Blog post.]

Don’t forget to join us on April 13, 2013 as staff members from the Government & Heritage Library and the State Archives of North Carolina, will discuss the top ten questions regarding Civil War ancestors asked by  our researchers. We will cover information on  Confederate and Union records, including U.S. Colored Troops.

The workshop will take place in the Auditorium at the State Archives/State Library Building (109 E. Jones Street in downtown Raleigh) from 10-11 a.m.  The Genealogy Research Room of the State Library and the State Archives Search Room are open from 9 a.m. till 2 p.m., so you can come before the presentation and stay after to start your research.

Parking is available in the visitor lot, immediately opposite the building (parking is free on Saturdays), along with the Jones St. employee lot (entrance on Blount St.) and in the employee lot opposite the Executive Mansion.

Please note that the workshop was originally scheduled for April 27th, but was re-scheduled to avoid conflicting with other major events in the downtown area.

For more information or to register please call (919)807-7450 or email slnc.reference@ncdcr.gov.

First Wednesdays – Siege of Washington, N.C.

On March 30^th 1863 Confederate forces under General Daniel Harvey Hill invested the town of Washington, N.C.  For a little more than two weeks Hill continued the siege of the town hoping to capture the garrison inside.  Confederate forces arrayed cannon and infantry seven miles below the town on the Pamlico River in an effort to keep United States forces from relieving the siege by the use of superior naval power.

The Confederate plan was working.  Federal attempts to relieve the siege by land forces sent out of New Bern ended in failure.  Confederate batteries along the river refused passage to Union vessels.  The land batteries aimed at the town of Washington were not so fortunate.  Despite such tactics as firing “hot shot” or heated cannon balls into the city (in an attempt to set it on fire), the Confederate cannons were not effective; so much so that one Union soldier reported Union soldiers regularly played baseball while the Confederates fired at them.   Other Union soldiers reportedly waved their hats as targets for the Confederate artillery.  In an outrageous display of taunting, one Union solder was reported to have placed a rocking chair on the town’s defenses and rocked away in plain sight of the artillerymen.

Myer’s letter reveals the moment the siege became doomed for failure.  He tells his wife of a successful passage of a Union vessel past the Confederates works.  The boat described by Myers is most likely the Union vessel Escort.  The Escort carried elements of the Fifth Rhode Island regiment past the batteries to Washington.  This daring act under heavy fire proved that the siege could be broken.  When the Escort ran the route in reverse, Hill ordered the withdrawal of his troops.

As Union forces secured the area they found a note left by the besieging Confederate forces offering a taunt and a salute: “Yankees! We leave you, not because we can’t take Washington, but because it is not worth taking. Besides a man to live here must be amphibious. . . . We compliment the plucky little garrison of the town, and also salute the pilot of the Escort.  Yours, Company K, Thirty-second N. C. S. T.”

Salisbury Bread Riot

On March 18, 1863 a group of about 50 women, wives and mothers of Confederate soldiers, participated in what would become known as the Salisbury Bread Riot.  These women blamed speculators for driving up the prices of necessary items during the Union blockade.  Struggling to provide for their families, they gathered together against the businesses that they suspected of speculating and demanded government prices for goods.  Michael Brown, one of the storeowners, recalled that when he refused to deal with them, the women attempted to break down his storeroom door with hatchets.  Finally he decided to give them ten barrels of flour to leave.  By the end of the day the women had obtained “twenty three barrels of flour, two sacks of salt, about half a barrel of molasses, and twenty dollars in money.”  They later wrote to Governor Vance to explain their unpleasant, but justified actions.  The Carolina Watchman, a local newspaper, commented on the event but did not place blame on the women.  The editors instead blamed the ineffectiveness of the government to provide enough food for the families at home.  This event ultimately led to better rationing of government resources to aid these soldiers’ families.

Please attend our free “Second Mondays” lecture entitled “Women Who Riot” on Monday, May 13, 2013 from 10:30am to 11:30am in the Auditorium of the Archives & History Building at 109 East Jones St., Raleigh, NC.

New Exhibit in Search Room

As a follow-up to our recent blog post pertaining to the Shelton Laurel Massacre, the Search Room of the State Archives of North Carolina has set up a new exhibit to highlight some of the documents relating to the Shelton Laurel Massacre on January 18, 1863, and the efforts to bring those responsible to justice. These documents range from letters to Governor Zebulon Vance to the wanted poster for James Keith, the former commander of the troops that participated in the atrocity. Please drop by and view these documents during your next visit to the Search Room.

First Wednesdays – “…so dark a crime…”

By the winter of 1863, the burden of the conflict was taking its toll on the population of North Carolina. The First Conscription Act removed the majority of the white male population between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, and effectively undercut the agriculture production within the Piedmont and Western North Carolina. Conscription also had the reverse effect in destroying the support for the war within the state. The very population needed to harvest crops in the fields was now called upon to fight in bloody engagements in Tennessee and Virginia. The stress of the war coupled with shortages of basic commodities needed for food and clothing served only to enflame the discontent within the state. Despite apparent successes on the battlefield, the war was being lost on the home front.

This internal stress was turning the home front into a battlefield for the survival of the Confederacy. With their families suffering, men were refusing to join the Confederate Army, and were resisting any attempt to force their enrollment. Confederate officials now faced the need to employ force to fill ranks of depleted regiments, and assert the authority of the new nation within areas in open rebellion against it. This collision of desires led to the spilling of blood within the communities throughout the state.

Within Madison County, North Carolina, pre-war political and social strife led to open warfare. Men began to leave their communities to hide from Conscription officers and to steal from stores that refused to sell them the basic goods needed to preserve their harvest. In addition, bands of Unionists began to use Madison County, specifically the Shelton Laurel area, to conduct military operations against Confederate forces and governmental offices in Western North Carolina and East Tennessee. To counter that threat, the Sixty-fourth North Carolina Troops was organized to patrol the community and reassert Confederate authority.

In January 1863, a group of men raided Marshall, the county seat of Madison County, to obtain supplies for their families, that was previously refused to them. During the raid, these men also broke into a number of houses, including those belonging to governmental officials and officers of the Sixty-fourth North Carolina Troops. Governor Zebulon Vance appealed to Confederate Brigadier General Henry Heth, the departmental commander, to send troops to suppress this lawlessness. General Heth ordered Lieutenant Colonel James A. Keith to mount an operation in the Shelton Laurel area to break up these roving bands of Unionists and to reassert Confederate authority. Lt. Colonel Keith’s regiment had lost a number of men to desertion, and it was believed that these deserters were hiding out in the Shelton Laurel area. After intimidating a number of families, Lt. Colonel Keith captured a group of men and boys ranging from the ages of 13 to 56, and started to move them toward the Confederate authorities in East Tennessee. After several prisoners escaped during the night, Lt. Colonel Keith ordered the remaining prisoners, thirteen in number, to be shot and buried in the Shelton Laurel community.

News of the massacre slowly began to seep out of Western North Carolina to Governor Vance. In a letter dated January 31, 1863, Solicitor for the Eighth District, Augustus Merrimon, wrote to Governor Vance concerning the end of the “Laurel expedition,” and informed him that “a number of prisoners were shot” and that he hoped that these rumors were untrue. Merrimon confirmed that the rumors were true in his second letter to Governor Vance dated February 16, 1863. As solicitor of the region, Merrimon interviewed sources to confirm the killings to Governor Vance, and requested to prosecute Lt. Colonel Keith and others of his command for murder. Vance had reason to believe Merrimon, since he was a personal friend and former law partner in Asheville, North Carolina. Vance appealed to Confederate Brigadier General Heth over the atrocity committed in North Carolina, and vowed to prosecute those responsible. By April 1863, Lt. Colonel Keith resigned from the Confederate Army claiming that his ability to command was being compromised by his fellow officers. Keith later claimed that he acted on the verbal orders of Confederate Brigadier General Heth to not take any prisoners from insurgents in the county.

By 1864, further events in the war soon overshadowed the massacre that occurred in Madison County. Brigadier General Heth ended the war as a divisional commander in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Lt. Colonel Keith went into hiding after his resignation, and was arrested after the war for murder, but escaped the Buncombe County jail on February 21, 1869. Keith was proclaimed innocent by the North Carolina Supreme Court, due to the application of U.S. President Andrew Johnson’s Amnesty Act of 1868. He later escaped to Arkansas, and no longer took an active role in public life. As U.S. Senator, Augustus Merrimon attempted to obtain pensions for the surviving widows of the victims, but his efforts were defeated in committee. To this day, descendents of the men and boys killed in January 1863 still live in the area in and around Shelton Laurel.

Please attend our free “Second Mondays” lecture pertaining to the Shelton Laurel Massacre on Monday, February 11, 2013 from 10:30 am to 11:30 am in the Auditorium of the Archives & History Building at 109 East Jones Street, Raleigh, NC.

Free Lecture: Who Freed Who – Emancipation and 13th Amendment: February 16, 1 pm to 2 pm

The Friends of the Archives and the State Archives of North Carolina Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee and are sponsoring a free lecture on February 16, at 1 p.m.

Please come join us!

Who Freed Who: Emancipation and the 13th Amendment is the talk being given by Dr. Gerald Prokopowicz, East Carolina University. The Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery, but would be followed by the 13th Amendment which was passed by Congress and legislatively abolished slavery in the U.S. The lecture will discuss the relationship between these two historic documents.

Prokopowicz is the author of “Did Lincoln Own Slaves?” and is the online host of Civil War Talk Radio. He was the resident Lincoln scholar at the Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Ind., and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College. He is chair of the History Department of East Carolina University in Greenville.

For information concerning the upcoming exhibit of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, please see:

http://www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/emancipation/index.html