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Zebulon Vance

February 15, 2024

Zebulon Baird Vance (May 13, 1830 – April 14, 1894) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 37th and 43rd governor of North Carolina, a U.S. Senator from North Carolina, and a Confederate officer during the American Civil War.[1][2]

Zeb Vance
United States Senator
from North Carolina
In office
March 4, 1879 – April 14, 1894
Preceded byAugustus S. Merrimon
Succeeded byThomas Jarvis
37th and 43rd Governor of North Carolina
In office
January 1, 1877 – February 5, 1879
LieutenantThomas J. Jarvis
Preceded byCurtis Brogden
Succeeded byThomas Jarvis
In office
September 8, 1862 – May 29, 1865
Preceded byHenry Clark
Succeeded byWilliam Holden
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from North Carolina's 8th district
In office
December 7, 1858 – March 3, 1861
Preceded byThomas L. Clingman
Succeeded byRobert B. Vance
North Carolina Senate
In office
December 1854 – November 1856
Succeeded byDavid Coleman
Personal details
Born(1830-05-13)May 13, 1830
Reems Creek, Buncombe County, North Carolina, U.S.
DiedApril 14, 1894(1894-04-14) (aged 63)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Resting placeRiverside Cemetery
Political partyWhig (1852–1856)
American (1857)
Conservative Party (1862–1868)
Democratic (1868–1894)
EducationWashington College Academy
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Signature
Military service
AllegianceConfederate
RankColonel
Unit26th North Carolina Infantry Regiment
Rough and Ready Guards
Battles/warsBattle of New Bern
Seven Days Battles

A prolific writer and noted public speaker, Vance became one of the most influential Southern leaders of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era periods.[3][4] As a leader of the New South, Vance favored the rapid modernization of the Southern economy, railroad expansion, school construction, and reconciliation with the North.[5] In addition, he frequently spoke out against antisemitism.[6] Considered progressive by many during his lifetime, Vance was also a slave owner and is now regarded as a racist by some modern historians and biographers.[6][7][8][9][10]

Early life edit

 
Vance Cabin, Reems Creek, North Carolina in the 19th century
 
Fireplace inside Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace cabin in the 19th century
 
Vance, c. 1845 to 1850

Vance was born in a log cabin in the settlement of Reems Creek in Buncombe County, North Carolina near present-day Weaverville, and was baptized at the Presbyterian Church on Reems Creek.[11][2][12] He was the third of eight children of Mira Margaret Baird and David Vance Jr., a farmer and innkeeper.[13][12][14] His paternal grandfather, David Vance, was a member of the North Carolina House of Commons and a colonel in the American Revolutionary War, serving under George Washington at Valley Forge.[15] His maternal grandfather was Zebulon Baird, a state senator from Buncombe County, North Carolina.[12] His uncle was Congressman Robert Brank Vance, namesake of his elder brother, Congressman Robert B. Vance.[2]

Around 1833, the Vance family moved to Lapland, now Marshall, North Carolina.[14] There, David Vance operated a stand, providing drovers with provisions as they moved hogs and other animals along the Buncombe Turnpike to markets to the south and east.[14] Although frequently short of cash, the family enslaved as many as eighteen people.[15] Vance's family had an unusually large library for its era and location, left to them by an uncle.[12]

At the age of six, Vance attended schools operated by M. Woodson, Esq., first at Flat Creek and, later, on the French Broad River.[16][17] Both were far enough from home that he had to board with others.[12] He also was a student at a school in Lapland run by Jane Hughey.[12]

While a youth, Vance broke his thigh when he fell from a tree.[12] This was treated by confining Vance in a box, as was common medical care at the time.[12] As a result of this injury, his right leg was shorter, requiring him to wear a taller heel on the right shoe.[12] Even so, it was said that Vance had "a peculiar and slightly ambling gait".[12]

When he was thirteen years old in fall 1843, Vance went to the Washington College in Tennessee.[2][4] In January 1844, his father died from a construction accident, forcing Vance to withdraw before the school year was over.[16][4] Mira Vance sold much of the family's property to pay her husband's many debts and to support her seven children.[16] As one writer noted, the family was "embarrassed with debt".[12] She moved her family to nearby Asheville, bringing along enslaved women and children as household workers.[13][16] However, the family still lacked the money to send Vance back to school in Tennessee.[16] Instead, Vance and his brother Robert attended Newton Academy in Asheville.[4]

To help support his family, Vance worked for John H. Patton as a hotel clerk in Warm Springs, now Hot Springs, North Carolina.[12][4] In Asheville, Vance studied law under attorney John W. Woodfin.[4] When he was 21 years old, Vance wrote to a family friend, David L. Swain, asking for a loan to study law in college.[16][4] Swain was a former North Carolina governor and then president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[16] Swain was also an elementary schoolmate of Vance's mother.[12] Swain arranged for a $300 loan for Vance from the university.[15]

Vance attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill starting in July 1851 and had a "brilliant academic year".[13] One of his classmates, Major James W. Wilson, recalled Vance's arrival in Chapel Hill with "homemade shoes and clothes, about three inches of between pants and shoes, showing his sturdy ankles...."[12] Another classmate, Kemp P. Battle, wrote Vance "had a brain large and active; a memory tenacious, a nature overflowing with joyous love of fun, and to a surprising degree accurate information of many subjects and many authors."[12] While at the university, Vance was a member of the Dialectic Society, which helped improve his oratory skills, as well as his ability to speak extemporarily.[12] He also joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.[18][19] Vance received an LL.D in 1852 and repaid the loan from the university with interest.[18][12]

Vance then went to Raleigh, where he studied law with Judge William Horn Battle of the North Carolina Supreme Court and Samuel F. Phillips, former Solicitor General of the United States.[20]

Pre-Civil War career edit

Attorney edit

 
Vance's first law office, Asheville, North Carolina

On January 1, 1852, Vance was admitted to the North Carolina Bar and received his county court license in Raleigh.[15] He returned to Asheville where he practiced law.[13] Vance said, "I went out to Court horseback, and carried a pair of saddle bags with a change of shirts and the North Carolina Form book...."[12] Almost immediately, the Buncombe County magistrates elected Vance as Solicitor of the Court of Pleas.[13][12] He was admitted to the state's superior courts in 1853.[13] In 1858, he became partners with attorney William Caleb Brown.[4]

Although he did not always prepare fully for cases, Vance was skilled at reading the jury and remembering every detail of testimony.[12] However, his success in court "was usually the result of wit, humor, boisterous eloquence, and clever retorts, not knowledge of the law."[13]

North Carolina Senate edit

After canvassing for Whig presidential candidate Winfield Scott in 1852, Vance became interested in his entry into politics.[16] In 1853, he was a delegate representing Buncombe County at a railroad convention in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee.[14] The goal of the convention was to convince the Charleston and Cincinnati Railroad to build a route through the mountains in Western North Carolina.[14]

Next, Vance ran as a Whig candidate for the North Carolina Senate, winning with a term starting in December 1854.[16] Vance was a Whig in the mode of Henry Clay.[16] He wrote, “I was raised in the Whig faith, and taught to revere the names of Clay, Webster, and other great leaders of that party.”[16] Whig policies were more beneficial to Western North Carolina and its smaller farms where Vance was from, while the Democratic Party of that era tended to advocate for the owners of large slave plantations found in Eastern North Carolina.[16]

While in the legislature, Vance worked on issues related to transportation in Western North Carolina, including introducing a bill for a public road in Yancey County and another bill to authorize subscriptions to fund the French Broad and Greenville Railroad.[14] He also supported extending the Western North Carolina Railroad into the state's mountain counties, favoring a route that would take the tracks to Knoxville, Tennessee by way of Asheville, North Carolina.[14]

When the Whig Party collapsed over the issue of slavery in 1854, Vance refused to join the primarily Southern Democratic Party or the anti-slavery Republicans, ultimately settling on the American Party or Know-Nothings.[16][4] However, Vance lost his campaign for reelection to the North Carolina Senate in 1856 to David Coleman.[16]

Journalism edit

In March 1855, John D. Hyman of the Asheville Spectator convinced Vance to join the newspaper as an editorial assistant.[21] He predicted that Vance would have "a brilliant career in the editorial line".[21] This weekly newspaper was published from 1853 to 1858 and was the leading Whig paper in the region.[22][23] One of the stories Vance wrote was about the search for Dr. Elisha Mitchell who disappeared in June 1857, having fallen to his death while trying to prove which peak was the highest in North Carolina.[4] Mitchell taught Vance geology at the University of North Carolina, and Vance immediately volunteered for the search party.[4] His account of the search, published in the Spectator in July 1857, is considered the most complete record of the tragic event.[4]

Vance stopped working as joint editor of the Spectator after a year, but became half-owner of the newspaper.[4] However, Hyman's steadfast support of Vance in the Spectator was a huge help to Vance's political career.[4] The opposition paper, the Asheville News wrote, "Mr. Vance is the Spectator's specialty, and at every mention of his name it sputters and snaps and snarls like a cat with its tail in a steel trap. To question the correctness of his views on a public issue, the Spectator seems to regard as little short of treason."[4]

U.S. Congress edit

 
Vance, 35th Congress photo by Julian Vannerson, 1859

In 1858, Vance ran for a seat in the U.S. Congress opened by the resignation of Thomas Lanier Clingman.[13] For this campaign, he went on a fifteen-county speaking tour that "set the mountains on fire".[24] Vance was elected for a term starting in December 1858.[13][2] At 28 years old, he was the youngest member of Congress at the time.[15] He was reelected in 1859 over his former political opponent David Coleman.[2][4]

Salaries and deficits edit

When Congress proposed giving a $10,000 or 25% increase in fringe benefits to each representative in the next session, Vance spoke out.[4] He said, "I do not think he [my successor] is entitled to $10,000 more for miscellaneous items than I am myself...the whole bill reminds me very much of the bills I have seen of fast young men at fashionable hotels: For two days board, $5, sundries, $50. It is like a comet, a very small body with an exceedingly great tail."[4]

Similarly, he showed a dislike for the recurring Treasury deficit. Ignoring the figures and charts presented by his colleagues, Vance said, "As we are in debt, and spending more than our income, and our income is derived principally from the tariff, we have to do one of three things; either raise that income, lower our expenses, or walk into the insolvent court and file our schedule. I do not think there is, or ever was, a political economist on earth who could deny these propositions."[4]

Slavery and secession edit

While serving in Congress Vance was pro-slavery,[16] saying in March 1860:

Plainly and unequivocally, common sense says keep the slave where he is now—in servitude. The interest of the slave himself imperatively demands it. The interest of the master, of the United States, of the world, nay of humanity itself, says, keep the slave in his bondage; treat him humanely, teach him Christianity, care for him in sickness and old age, and make his bondage light as may be; but above all, keep him a slave and in strict subordination; for that is his normal condition; the one in which alone he can promote the interest of himself or his fellows.[25]

Despite his support for the institution of slavery, Vance was openly against North Carolina's secession from the union,[26] preferring a strategy where both slavery and the union could be preserved.[6] In writing to a friend, he advised caution about secession:

"We have everything to gain and nothing on earth to lose by delay, but by too hasty action we may take a fatal step that we never can retrace—may lose a heritage that we can never recover though we seek it earnestly and with tears.”[27]

However, Vance was in favor of a secession convention so that the people of North Carolina could make their own decision.[27] In March 1861, Vance traveled throughout North Carolina, trying to persuade the State not to follow South Carolina by seceding.[17] In April, he was addressing a large crowd when a telegraph was read announcing the firing on Fort Sumter and President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers.[17] At that moment, Vance recalled sadly changing into a secessionist, as he "preferred to shed northern rather than southern blood."[17] On the spot, he shifted his speech to a call to fight for South Carolina.[17] After the Battle of Fort Sumter, Vance resigned from Congress and headed home to Buncombe County.[16][26]

Civil War edit

 
Vance in the Civil War
 
Governor Vance on his Inauguration Day 1862

Soldier edit

On May 4, 1861, two weeks before North Carolina seceded, Vance raised a company of local men known as the Rough and Ready Guards and became their captain.[13][27] The Rough and Ready Guards became part of Company F, 14th North Carolina Infantry, and encamped near Morganton, North Carolina.[27][13] By June 1861, Vance and the 14th were in Suffolk, Virginia, helping to defend Norfolk.[13][27] That August, Vance was elected colonel of the 26th North Carolina Infantry Regiment, stationed at Fort Macon in Carteret County, North Carolina.[27] The Rough and Ready Guards followed Vance to the 26th.[17]

Vance and the 26th engaged in the Battle of New Bern in March 1862.[13][15] Although outnumbered four to one, Vance's troops held back the enemy for five hours and were the last Confederates to leave the battlefield.[27] Vance wrote his wife praising the performance of his men.”[27] Even in their 35-mile forced retreat, Vance showed bravery.[27] He nearly drowned swimming 75 yards across the flooded Bryce's Creek to get boats for his men—the three soldiers who swam with him drowned.[27]

In July 1862, Vance and the 26th fought at Malvern Hill outside of Richmond, Virginia.[13][15][27] The Confederates were not victorious, but Vance again showed "unflinching leadership".[27] When North Carolina needed a new governor, his name was immediately mentioned.[27]

Governor, 1st term edit

Campaign edit

In 1862, Vance ran for governor as the "soldier's candidate" and easily won over secessionist Democrat William J. Johnston of Charlotte.[15][28][13] Vance did not leave his troops to campaign, nor did he give any speeches or present a platform.[24] Instead, he wrote a letter that was published in the Fayetteville Observer saying, "If, therefore, my fellow citizens believe that I could serve the great Cause better as Governor than I am now doing, and should see proper to confer this responsibility upon me without solicitation on my part, I should not feel at liberty to decline it, however conscious of my own unworthiness.”[27]

His campaign was overseen by William W. Holden of Raleigh's North-Carolina Standard and Edward J. Hale, of the Fayetteville Observer.[24][17][27] Holden had been driven out of the Democratic Party in 1860 because he opposed secession.[24] Holden, like Vance, was now a member of the Conservative Democratic Party of North Carolina, a coalition of former Whigs and Democrats who were against secession.[28][13][12] Holden simply wrote that voters should "elect the man who defended their homes", noting that Johnston was at home tending to his railroads while Vance was "in the face of the foe, with his sword drawn, ready for action".[24] It also helped that Johnston's Democratic party could be blamed for "high prices, conscription, military defeats, suffering of the soldiers, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus".[24]

Vance received 54,423 of 74,871 total votes, carrying all but twelve of the state's counties.[24] This continues to be the largest margin of victory for a governor's race in the history of North Carolina.[27] Vance was serving with the 26th in the trenches at Petersburg, Virginia when he learned about the outcome of the election.[29][20] He resigned his commission and traveled to Raleigh to become governor.[29] At the time, he was 32 years old.[6]

War Governor edit

For his inauguration on September 8, 1862, Vance's old regimental band, the Johnny Rebs, performed “Governor Vance’s Inauguration March”.[27][24] During his address, Vance said he would "prosecute the war until the South obtained its independence".[24] This helped calm the North Carolina Democrats and the Confederate government who both feared Vance would rejoin the union or withdraw from the Confederacy.[24] General Robert E. Lee said, "Vance's oratory was worth 5,000 soldiers".[30]

Vance's first objective was to confine the Union troops in the eastern counties, hold the state's main port Wilmington, and protect the Weldon Railroad.[24] Thus, he worked with the Confederate war department to add troops at Kinston, North Carolina to protect the railroad and watch the enemy encampments.[24] Despite Vance's continued requests to Richmond for military reinforcements, he was ignored and North Carolina's defenses failed when 10,000 Union troops advanced on Kinston in December 1862.[24] To help solve the shortage of soldiers, Vance offered amnesty to all deserters who returned to service; large numbers of North Carolina's soldiers returned to active duty in 1863.[24]

Vance aspired to provide the state's troops with needed food, clothing, and weapons.[13] He also demonstrated concern for the soldiers' families.[16] He continued to operate salt works on the coast, selling the salt at one-third of its value and distributing salt supplies to every county for meat preservation.[24][17] He also proposed a welfare system and kept the textile mills operational.[16] To achieve this, Vance relied on blockade runners to export North Carolina's cotton abroad.[15] This yielded funds to provide food and money for the general population and to keep the mills open; the legislature was able to issue $6,000,000 for the care of impoverished citizens and keep the mills open.[24] The blockade runners also brought needed shoes, blankets, and medicine.[17] Vance ensured that his state's soldiers were kept clothed by having women and children fashion new uniforms in their homes with material manufactured in the state's mills.[15][17] As a result, North Carolina was the only state to clothe and equip its regiments during the Civil War.[15] Vance also shared surpluses with the rest of the Confederacy; General James Longstreet's troops received 12,000 uniforms from North Carolina after the Battle of Chickamauga.[15]

Vance was a major proponent of individual rights and local self-government, often putting him at odds with the Confederate government.[13] When President Jefferson Davis announced plans to indefinitely imprison Southerners suspected of "disloyalty" without a trial, Vance refused to deprive North Carolinians of their constitutional rights, saying he would rather recall the state's soldiers fighting in Virginia and order them to protect his constituents by force if necessary.[31][32] Davis did not risk challenging Vance; as a result, North Carolina was the only state to observe the right of habeas corpus and keep its courts fully functional during the war.[13]

Vance also opposed Confederate conscription practices, which became more severe as Confederate defeats mounted.[24] He was especially against the policy that allowed plantation owners and rich businessmen to avoid fighting by paying others to serve in their place, a practice described as creating "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight".[27] Postwar, Vance testified in the hearing investigating George Pickett's execution of 22 alleged Confederate deserters in the aftermath of the Battle of New Bern.[33] He testified that the North Carolinians had joined on the understanding that they would be used only for local defense and that "the Confederate government did not keep faith with these local troops, who were transfer[red] to the regular service in violation of their enlistment agreement."[33] His testimony questioned the legality of Pickett's decision to hang Confederate deserters who had later sided with the Union and put Pickett at risk of prosecution for war crimes.[33]

In his unpublished autobiography, Vance stated that his main reason for supporting the Confederate government was to preserve the institution of slavery.[34] Historian Selig Adler wrote, "As war governor, Vance endeared himself forever to his people. He mitigated the horrors of war by insisting on the precedence of civil law, and stoutly protected the state from the uncomfortable militarism of the Confederate government."[26]

Governor, 2nd term edit

Vance was reelected as governor in 1864, defeating former supporter, Unionist Democrat, and now peace candidate William Woods Holden.[16]

In early April 1865, General William T. Sherman's troops neared Raleigh, North Carolina.[35] Vance wrote to Sherman requesting a meeting, hoping to prevent the state's capital city from being pillaged.[35] He requested safe conduct to discuss North Carolina surrendering to the Union.[36] Two of Vance's men met with Sherman; although they did not reach an agreement about ending the war, they did save Raleigh.[35] Sherman was willing to talk to Vance, but by then Vance had been called to meet with Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet in Charlotte, North Carolina.[35] At that meeting, the Confederate government released Vance from any obligations to defend the Confederacy.[35]

 
Blandwood Mansion's west parlor where Vance surrendered

On April 26, 1865, Vance learned that Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston had surrendered his forces to Sherman at the James Bennett farmhouse near Durham, North Carolina.[13] On April 28, Vance gave a final proclamation to the people of his state, telling both civilians and soldiers "to retire quietly in their homes, and exert themselves in preserving order".[24][37] He then surrendered to General John M. Schofield in the west parlor of Blandwood Mansion in Greensboro, North Carolina on May 2, 1865.[13][35][38] Schofield accepted Vance's surrender and told him to go to Statesville, North Carolina where Mrs. Vance and their children were living, as he had no orders for Vance's arrest.[13][26]

Some have said that Vance left Raleigh when it was captured by Sherman and that his house in Statesville was a temporary state capitol.[39][40] These claims emerged as part of a political attack against Vance by Republicans during the 1876 governor's race.[35] There is no evidence that Vance conducted official business in Statesville; rather, it seems he relinquished the office of governor once he left Raleigh.[39][40]

On May 29, 1865, William Woods Holden, Vance's former political opponent, was appointed governor of North Carolina by President Andrew Johnson.[41]

Prisoner edit

Vance was arrested in Statesville on May 13, 1865, his 35th birthday, by General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick.[13][26][42] Samuel Wittkowsky, the man who gave prisoner Vance a wagon ride to the train station, noted that Vance was silently shedding tears at first.[12] Then, wiping his eyes, Vance expressed concern for his wife and children who had no money to live on and worried about the "indignities" that North Carolina might suffer in the aftermath of the war.[12]

After a short imprisonment in Raleigh, Vance arrived at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C on May 20, 1865.[12] There, he shared a small cell with John Letcher, the former Governor of Virginia.[24] Each man had an iron bed and chair.[12] They had to pay for their meals which came from a local restaurant.[12] Vance filed for parole on June 3, 1865, using President Johnson's amnesty program.[13] At the time, Vance's wife was very ill, and Johnson's sympathies lay with reuniting the family.[16] He paroled Vance on July 6, 1865, after an imprisonment of 47 days.[13][43]

Vance was formally pardoned on March 11, 1867; although no formal charges were filed against him before his arrest, during his imprisonment, or during his parole.[43]

Postwar career edit

Attorney edit

 
Vance's residence in Charlotte, North Carolina in the 19th century

After the war, Vance practiced law in Statesville briefly before moving to Charlotte, North Carolina where he formed a practice with Clement Dow and R. D. Johnson.[13][16][35] In addition to Charlotte, he had court cases in Concord, Dallas, Lexington, Lincolnton, Monroe, and Salisbury.[12] Among his clients was former Confederate soldier, Tom Dula, who was accused of murdering his girlfriend Laura Foster in 1866.[16] While he succeeded in having the trial moved from Wilkesboro to Statesville, believing Dula could not receive a fair trial in Wilkes County, Dula was nevertheless convicted and, although he was given a new trial on appeal, Dula was convicted again and hanged on May 1, 1868.[44] To the end of his life, Vance maintained that Dula was innocent.[16] This high–profile murder is the subject of the folk song "Tom Dooley".[16]

Fourteenth Amendment edit

Vance and other former Confederates were banned from returning to public office by the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868.[45] Vance was depressed during this period and resented this limitation, especially since the same Amendment that kept him out of the politics he loved, granted African American men citizenship and full political rights.[16] Around 1868, he began supporting Conservative Party politicians, using racist dialogue to gain other supporters.[16]

In February 1868, Vance attended the North Carolina Conservation Convention, also called the Rebel Convention, in Raleigh.[46][47] The Dailey Standard noted that the convention was noteworthy for its hatred of the government and formerly enslaved people.[46] After many calls from the attendees for him to speak, Vance spontaneously talked about his lack of prejudice toward the formerly enslaved, commending their conduct and fidelity during the war. However, he affirmed his belief that only educated whites should vote in the South.[47]

In 1870, the North Carolina legislature appointed Vance to the United States Senate, but because of the Fourteenth Amendment, he was not eligible to serve unless authorized by a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress.[35][13][42] Vance spent two years unsuccessfully petitioning the Republican-dominated Senate to seat him; he ended up resigning from the appointment.[35][42][20]

Lecture circuit edit

While he was kept out of politics, Vance earned income in the lecture circuit.[15] His first important lecture was "The Duties of Defeat" which he gave at the University of North Carolina's commencement on June 7, 1866.[26] Shortly afterward, he was speaking in venues ranging from county fairs to large lecture halls in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Baltimore.[26] By the early 1870s, Vance had a national reputation as an outstanding platform speaker.[26] His style "was peculiarly his own".[26] He had a remarkable ability to adapt "to every type of audience using local illustrations and interest, and his keen, sparkling wit… Like Lincoln, Vance was one of the few men who could successfully combine incessant jocularity with seriousness and get credit for seriousness".[26] Some of his popular speeches were "The Humorous Side of Politics" and "The Demagogue".[26] He also discussed the aspects of the Civil War in "The Last Days of the War in North Carolina" and "The Political and Social South During the War".[26]

Starting around 1870, Vance gave a speech called "Scattered Nation" hundreds of times, praising Jews and calling for religious tolerance and justice.[26] Although Vance's motives for "Scattered Nation" are not fully known, it was not for political gain as there were fewer than 500 Jews in North Carolina at the time and antisemitism was common.[26] One modern writer suggests Vance's perspective may have been impacted by his involvement with Freemasonry as this organization accepted Jews.[48] Historian Leonard Rogoff, president of Jewish Heritage North Carolina, also notes that Vance established a relationship with Samuel Wittkowsky, a Jew and fellow Mason.[48] When Vance was arrested, he was physically unable to walk to the train station and was only offered a mule by the federal troops; Vance was rescued from this humiliation by Wittkowsky who gave Vance a ride in his wagon.[48] The two men's later friendship may have impacted Vance's perspective.[49][26]

Yet, within the "Scattered Nation" call for tolerance to Jews, Vance also made his prejudices clear, saying, "[In] contrast to the Jews, the 'African negro' had contributed nothing to…the civilization of mankind" and that “laws and partisan courts alike have been used to force [African American men] into an equality with those whom he could not equal."[16]

Governor, 3rd term edit

 
Vance, c. 1877–1879 painting in the North Carolina State Archives

In 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant signed an amnesty bill that included Vance.[16] Vance ran for an open seat in the U.S. Senate but lost to Augustus Merrimon.[16] In 1876, Vance was elected to his third term of Governor as North Carolina.[45] However, he only served two years of the four-year term.[13] His swearing-in in 1877 was accompanied by festivities that began a tradition of lavish gubernatorial inaugurations in the state.[50]

Education edit

As a postwar governor, Vance was considered progressive for his era.[51] He proposed agricultural reforms, the expansion of teacher training through normal schools, and the addition of more public schools, including separate but equal access for African Americans.[16][45][32][15] In his 1877 message to the legislature about creating normal schools, Vance says, "A school of a similar character should be established for the education of colored teachers, the want of which is more deeply felt by the black race even than the white. In addition to the fact that it is our plain duty to make no discrimination in the matter of public education…their desire for education is an extremely credible one, and should be gratified as far as our means will permit. In short, I regard it as an unmistakable policy to imbue these black people with a hearty North Carolina feeling and make them cease to look abroad for the aids to their progress and civilization, and the protection of their rights as they have been taught to do, and teach them to look to their State instead...."[12]

Two years later, his message to the legislature announced that the Board of Education had created two normal schools—a summer institute at the University of North Carolina for white teachers and a new permanent institution, the State Colored Normal School, for black teachers at the Howard School in Fayetteville.[12][52] The State Colored Normal School became Fayetteville State University.[52]

Railroads edit

During his third term as governor, Vance brought the railroad to Western North Carolina, finally realizing his dream from the meeting at Cumberland Gap in 1853.[16][14] In his first message to the legislature on January 13, 1877, he suggested that convicts should be sent to work on the Western North Carolina Railroad in McDowell County.[14] Many of the state's convicts were freed slaves arrested under North Carolina's vagrancy laws which essentially allowed the imprisonment of those without jobs.[16] Having found a free labor source, Vance then had to resolve a cash shortfall—the State did not have the funds to both equip and transport the convicts.[14] He turned to J. E. Rankin, chair of the Buncombe County Commission, asking that local elites provide the needed $25,000.[14] When Rankin sent a negative reply, Vance wrote a heated response.[14] He then asked the Federal government.[53]

Another problem facing Vance was that this railroad was the greatest engineering challenge east of the Rockies, requiring a climb of some 1,000 feet (300 m) in just over 3 miles (4.8 km).[14] One modern historian notes that the Blue Ridge railroad project became Vance's "personal crusade."[14] Despite his ambitious goal of completing the railroad in two years, Vance wanted the convicts to be treated well.[14] In July 1877, he wrote the Penitentiary Board when he learned that convicts working on both the Chester & Lenoir Narrow Gauge Railroad and the Spartanburg and Asheville Railroad had been subjected to cruel treatment, including being overworked and whipped.[14] Vance wrote that such conditions were "not to be tolerated for a moment" and requested immediate punishment of those who were guilty of "such disgraceful conduct."[14] However, the state only provided seven cents a day to feed each convict and the schedule worked the men seven days a week.[14]

Despite Vance's intervention, at least 125 of the 558 convicts died because of inclement weather, inadequate housing, lack of food, and dangerous working conditions such as the cave-ins and accidents at the Swannanoa Tunnel that killed 21 people.[16][14] Guards also shot men trying to escape.[14] Historian Gordan McKinney says, "This episode thereby qualifies as one of the most egregious industrial–construction disasters in Appalachian history."[14] Yet, Vance continued to push for the grueling pace of work.[14]

In his January 1879 address to the legislature, Vance acknowledged some problems with the convict labor program.[14] However, he never acknowledged his role in the tragedy.[14] What his voting public remembered was that the new railroad network transported supplies to farms and factories, and then to markets, helping to stimulate the economy across the state.[42]

U.S. Senate edit

In 1878, Vance was again elected to the United States Senate where he became a leader of the Democratic Party.[13][16] Although Vance fought for Southern interests while in the Senate, he showed "little bitterness" towards the North.[13] As a result, he helped unify Congress which was still struggling with the discord between North and South.[42]

Vance was reelected to the Senate in 1885 and 1891, serving until he died in 1894.[13] During his tenure, he chaired the committee on enrolled bills, chaired the committee on privileges and elections, served on the joint committee of the library, and served on the finance committee during the McKinley Tariff debates.[2][54]

Reconstruction edit

In one of his earliest speeches before the Senate, Vance advocated for H.R. 2 which called for the removal of military oversight in Southern elections, the repeal of laws that gave Federal marshals control of Southern elections, and the removal of the requirement for Federal Court jurors to take the oath of allegiance.[12] Vance said:

Peace then came—no, not peace, but the end of war came—no not the end of war, but the end of legitimate, civilized war, and for three years you dallied with us. One day we were treated as though we were in the Union, and as though we had legitimate State governments in operation; another day, we were treated as though we were out of the Union, and our State governments were rebellious usurpations...You deposed our State governments and ejected from office every official, from Governor to township constable. and remitted us to a state of chaos...You disenfranchised at least ten percent of our citizens, embracing the wisest, best, and most experienced. You enfranchised slaves, the lowest and most ignorant; and you placed them over them as leaders of a class of men who have attained to the highest positions of infamy known to modern ages...The new governments went to work, and in a short space of four years, they plundered those eleven Southern States to the extent of $262,000,000; that is to say, they took all that we had that was amenable to larceny...It would be well enough for Republican leaders to remember that the inflexible law of compensation exists in politics as well as in other things...If we violate the laws of health we suffer bodily pains or early dissolution; if we violate the laws of society we suffer in public esteem; if we violate the laws of man we are subject to its pains and penalties; if we violate the laws of God, we will suffer the penalties of sin; if we violate the laws of nature we can reap none of the benefits which our knowledge of them now enables us to derive therefrom. So it is in politics....[12]

Later on in his speech, Vance asked, "Was it the Union you fought for or political supremacy?"[12] He pointed out that the nation has benefitted from the leadership of other political parties.[12] He also said, "To suppose the States are either unable, unwilling, or too corrupt to hold peaceful and honest elections, is to declare unmistakably that the people therein are incapable of self-government...For one, I can say, with unspeakable pride and absolute truth, that the people of North Carolina who sent me here are able, willing, and virtuous enough to fulfill these and all other higher functions of government; that they have ever done so since the keels of Raleigh's ships first grated upon the white sands of her shores; and God helping them, they and their children will continue to do so, if not destroyed by centralization…"[12]

Vance also supported the Blair Education Bill which requested federal funding to help educate the freed slaves in the South.[12] Although, Vance says, "I admit that there is no special provision in the constitution or perhaps one looking directly toward it for public education. But the men who formed the constitution had no idea that there would be the great civil war that occurred. They had no idea that 500,000 slaves would be liberated by that war, and still less of an idea that the 500,000 slaves would be forced into…absolute equality of citizenship...They had no idea that their institutions and work of their hand would ever be committed to ignorant and unlettered Africans for protection and preservation."[12] Vance also pointed out North Carolina's successes in creating schools to educate the freed slaves.[12]

In a speech on January 30, 1890, regarding Senate Bill 1121 which authorized people of color to emigrate from Southern states, Vance comes close to speaking against slavery, saying, "Those of us in the South who had deprecated the war and deplored the agitation which led to it, as we sat in the ashes of our own homes and scraped ourselves with potsherds of desolation, yet consoled ourselves for the slaughter of our kindred and the devastation of our fields by the reflection that this, at least, was the end; that the great original wrong committed by our fathers had at last been atoned for...."[12] Yet, Vance's racism shows when he talks about reconstruction.[12] He said, "The truth is, he [the former slave] began to prosper when the [Southern] whites took control. Progress for him would have been impossible under his own rule as it was for the whites. Ten more years of such government as reconstruction fixed upon the South would have made the fairest portion of the American continent a wilderness. In short, it would have been Africanized..."[12] However, Vance is "glad to say that North Carolina is one of the States in the South where there is the least complaint of infringement of the colored man's rights, either at the ballot box or in the courts of justice...That there are instances of mistreatment and occasionally of cruelty to the negros now and then occurring in the South I candidly admit and regret."[12]

Vance also outlined his vision of the future, with a bit of sarcasm:

The millennium has not yet arrived in the land of reconstruction; the reign of perfect righteousness, of absolute justice, has not yet been established south of Mason and Dixon's line, though of course, it is in full operation north of that imaginary division. There is no suppression of the popular vote by jerrymander or otherwise; there is no purchase of the floating vote in blocks of five, no ejection of colored children from white schools or colored men from theaters and barbers chairs, and where we may hope that, in the process of time and in the spread of intelligence and increased appreciation for the virtues of the negroes, one black man may soon be sent to Congress from the North; that some railroad attorney or millionaire will make room in the Senate of the United States for the colored brother; that one colored postmaster for a white town may be appointed in the North; that in the State of Kansas, the soil so prolific in friendships for the colored man, a respectable negro, duly nominated on the Republican ticket, may receive the full vote of his party, and not be scratched almost to the point of defeat by those who love him, as he was in Topeka; that one accomplished colored man may be sent abroad to represent his country in some other land than Hayti [sic] or Liberia.[12]

In reality, Vance believed in white supremacy.[12] He said, "I am not only willing but anxious to have justice done them in everything, and to do all that may be required of me to aid them [former slaves] in the difficulties of their position; but I am not willing that they should rule my people."[12]

Farmers' Alliance edit

Vance also faced a political challenge with the Farmers' Alliance in North Carolina.[5][15] Some claimed Vance made concessions with this organization to gain reelection to the Senate because the Farmers' Alliance essentially served as a third political party at the time.[12] On the flip side, Vance was accused of being insincere in his dealings with the Farmers' Alliance, such as introducing a bill on their behalf with no effort made towards getting it passed.[12] However, from the beginning, Vance tended to side with the masses, including the farming class.[12] In addition, both Vance and the farmers agreed on the Sherman Antitrust Act.[12]

Furthermore, the organization's origins in North Carolina started with Vance.[12] Because Vance was against tariffs which he felt enriched the few and impoverished the many, he encouraged North Carolina's farmers to organize so they could collectively defend themselves against outside forces.[12] Later, he introduced Senate Bill 2806, aka the sub-treasury scheme, at the request of North Carolina's first Commissioner of Agriculture, Leonidas L. Polk, who had become president of the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union.[12] However, after investigating the sub-treasury scheme, Vance came to believe that it was both impracticable and unconstitutional.[12] Although he was not on board for this solution to the farmer's needs, Vance nevertheless praised the Farmer's Alliance in correspondence to its president, noting, "For the past six months there has been more discussion upon the condition of the farmer and matters pertaining to their interests than have taken place within ten years prior. The more of this talk, the better for the farmers. Their wrongs are so palpable that the justice of readdressing them will become more and more irresistible as the light is turned on. The policy of the farmers, being right now, is to keep within the right. Demand nothing that is illegal, ask nothing that is unreasonable."[12] Vance also hinted that the sub-treasury scheme could be harmful to him and that the farmers should stand by their friend.[12]

When the North Carolina legislature stated that their appointed Senator for the 1891 term should vote for the sub-treasury scheme, Vance "positively and emphatically declined" to agree to be elected under such constraints.[12] Rather than give up Vance, the legislature reworded their instructions to request that Vance "use all honorable means" to secure financial reforms.[12] Yet Vance was loath to accept any such conditions.[12] In a letter written to a member of the legislature on April 1, 1897, Thomas J. Jarvis said, "There is no power on earth that could induce Vance to have accepted an office under conditions which he felt could be justly held to forfeit the affection and high esteem in which he is held to the people of his State."[12]

Vance, who was dealing with poor health at the time, wrote a letter, rather than speaking in public, about the need for Democrats to fight the Republicans who want to limit rights given by the Constitution.[12] Vance stated that the "situation is most critical" and cautioned against splitting the Democratic Party into two parties as this would only benefit the Republicans.[12] Vance also reminds everyone, "Since I have been your representative in the Senate I have both spoken and voted against that unjust legislation. At home, as you know, I never ceased to expose inequalities and to advise farmers to organize for resistance to it...My unfaltering confidence is in the true farmers of North Carolina, who as members of the Alliance will, I trust, not permit their noble order and their just cause to be perverted and debased."[12]

National issues edit

 
"The Administration Sawmill" political cartoon by Joseph Keppler, with Vance at the far left and President Cleveland at the sawmill. From Puck magazine, February 1886
 
"Snowed In" political cartoon by Joseph Keppler showing a snowstorm depositing silver coins at the Capitol and the Department of Treasury with Vance and others gathering coins for a snowball fight. From Puck magazine, January 1886.

In national politics, Vance generally supported conservative President Grover Cleveland.[5][15] He made a speech in North Carolina saying:

Many of our people, it is true, have objected to Mr. Cleveland and preferred that he should not have been nominated. I confess that I was among that number. But an individual preference before the nomination of a candidate is one thing and the duty of a true man after that nomination has been fairly made is another and very different thing indeed...If we refuse to abide by the voice of the majority of our fellow Democrats, freely and unmistakably expressed in friendly convention, there is an end of all associated party effort in the government of our country; if we personally participate in that...convention and then refuse to abide by the decision of its tribunal...then there is an end of all personal honor among all men, and the confidence which is necessary to all combined efforts is forever gone.[55]

Vance opposed important legislation of the era such as the McKinley Tariff, civil service programs, the internal revenue service, and the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act—gaining a reputation as an opposition senator.[13][1] Vance was also against capitalistic monopolies and the government purchasing railroads and telegraph lines, as well as a monopoly by national banks.[12][20] However, he did not believe railroads or other non-government entities should be allowed to own more public land than was needed for their primary function.[12]

Vance supported increasing the volume of currency and silver coinage; at the time, the amount of paper and coin money released could not exceed the gold in the treasury.[12] Vance made his last speech in the Senate on September 1, 1893, speaking against House Bill 1, regarding the unconditional repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act that was approved in 1890.[12] Although noticeably weakened from illness, Vance spoke for two hours and gave what many consider the best speech of his career.[12] Early in the speech, Vance simply explains, "When money is abundant prices are high; when money is scarce the prices of all products are low. Therefore, he that increases the abundance of money benefits the production and enhances prices and wages, and he that contracts or diminishes the amount of this money depreciates everything which is for sale, including wages...The effect upon the well-being of mankind which would follow the destruction of one-half of this currency—it is impossible to accurately describe."[12]

Ku Klux Klan edit

After the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) emerged as an organization of terror throughout the South, including North Carolina.[16] Modern detractors and some modern biographers claim that Vance was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.[56]

The first known source to connect the two is an affidavit to the Congress's Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States from Thomas A. Hope of Lincoln County, North Carolina.[57] In his affidavit, Hope states, "[I] frequently heard it talked among the [KKK] members that Z. B. Vance was the chief of the State; do not know this of my own knowledge, have only heard it talked of."[57]

In her 1924 self-published book, Authentic History Ku Klux Klan, 1865–1877, Susan Lawrence Davis states that Vance was the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan for North Carolina.[45] Davis had a history of fakery and appears to have plagiarized a 1906 historical romance novel by Thomas Dixon Jr. when writing her nonfiction Klan history.[58][45] Modern experts note other discrepancies in Authentic History, including fabricated descriptions of Klan costumes, giving reason to question any claims she made about Vance.[58]

However, Davis's report of Vance's association with the Klan is repeated in many credible books in the 20th century, such as historian Stanly Fitzgerald Horn's Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan, 1866–187.[59] Horne writes, "Ex-Governor Zebulon Baird Vance was generally supposed to be the Grand Dragon of the Realm, and the testimony of the confessed Ku Klux was to the effect that within the Klan Vance was generally looked upon as the chief of state."[59]

In the 2004 biography, Zeb Vance: North Carolina's Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader, Gordon McKinney writes that Vance did publicly discuss the KKK in 1870 after a series of Ku Klux Klan incidents in Orange County, North Carolina.[60] The statement issued by Vance reads: "I opposed the Ku Klux from the start...refusing to have anything to do with such an organization on the grounds that it was a secret society...I not only refused to approve of it but made a speech in a certain county against such organizations."[60] Similarly, in a review of Vance's writings of the era, historian Milton Ready notes, "[Vance] embraced the racial stereotypes of the time that deemed newly freed blacks inferior. Yet he loathed the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan, condemning its members as cowards and 'ruffians,' its intimidating methods as unlawful."[3]

Regardless of what Vance was writing or saying, historian Joe T. Mobley says it is important to consider Vance's "acquiescence to the violence of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction."[61] Vance also capitalized on "the tension created by the Klan in the mountain region to help the Conservatives sweep the western counties."[16]

Personal life edit

 
Harriett Espy Vance, 1878
 
Florence Steele Martin Vance
 
Gombroom, Black Mountain, North Carolina in the 19th–century

Around 1851, Vance began to court Harriette "Hattie" Newell Espy, the orphaned daughter of Presbyterian minister Robert Espy.[26][4] After he had passed the Bar and started a law practice, Vance married Harriette at Quaker Meadows, the home of her uncle Charles McDowell in Burke County, North Carolina on August 3, 1853.[62][4] They had five sons: Robert Espy Vance (born 1854, died young), Charles Noel Vance (born 1856), David Mitchell Vance (born 1857), Zebulon Baird Vance Jr. (born 1860), and Thomas Malvern Vance (born 1862).[13][16] The family lived on a 5 acres (20,000 m2) lot in Asheville, North Carolina, purchased for $2,300 which came from Hattie's dowry.[4] Vance enslaved six people—Isaac, Julia, Hannah, Marion, and two unnamed children—who cleaned the house, cooked, maintained the garden, did laundry, and helped rear the Vance children.[16]

Vance joined the Mt. Hermon Lodge No. 118 Ancient Free and Accepted Masons in Asheville, reaching the degree of Master Mason on June 20, 1853.[63] When he moved to Charlotte after the Civil War, Vance attended Phalanx Lodge No. 31.[64] That lodge quickly grew in size with Vance's membership.[64] In 1867, Vance co-founded the Excelsior Lodge No. 261 as the second lodge in Charlotte with Samuel Wittkowsky.[64] However, Excelsior Lodge records show Vance as "Resident Mason—Not Member."[64]

Vance was also one of the nineteen original stakeholders in the Asheville Cemetery Company which purchased land and hired landscape architect Charles T. Colyer to create Riverside Cemetery.[29] In return, Vance received twenty grave plots and his choice of location within the cemetery.[29]

Vance donated to keep the University of North Carolina operating.[29] In 1875 when the university reopened after the war, he was asked to be its president, following in the footsteps of former Governor David Lowry Swain.[12][29] However, Vance declined the offer.[29] He said, "No, say to my friends that it would kill me in a few weeks to be obliged to behave as is required for a college president in order to furnish an example to the boys."[12] He was a member of the Southern Historical Society, serving as its vice-president of North Carolina around 1873.[65]

In February 1865, Vance had a stroke that caused temporary paralysis and “the muscles of the left cheek and eye to occasionally jerk and twitch....”[16] In October 1878, the Vances moved into a residence on Fayetteville Street in Raleigh, the former home of Kemp P. Battle.[66] Vance joined the church for the first time at the age of 48, choosing his wife's Presbyterian church.[67] However, his wife Harriette died on November 3, 1878, after a long and painful illness, just one month after the death of Vance's mother.[13][12] A train took Harriette's remains back to Asheville to be buried at Riverside Cemetery.[12][29]

On January 21, 1880, Vance met Florence Steele Martin while attending a ball at the Riggs House hotel in Washington, D.C.[68] Martin was a wealthy Catholic widow from Louisville, Kentucky, with a twelve-year-old son.[16][26] When she returned home three weeks later, the two were engaged.[68] Based on the more than 100 letters Vance sent her over the next four months, this was a love match.[68] Vance told a friend that Mrs. Martin was perfect for him except for her religion.[26] He wrote, "Think of it! What will my Presbyterian friends say to me?"[26] In reality, there were legitimate concerns that her religion could negatively impact his political career, but Vance was not deterred.[68] They married on June 17, 1880, some six months after meeting, in Oldham County, Kentucky at the home of her mother, Mrs. Samuel Steele.[69] They did not have any children.[13]

The couple lived at 1627 Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., but also started building a house called Gombroom in Black Mountain, North Carolina.[16][20] To fund Gombroom, Vance used his wife's money and sold land in downtown Asheville that he inherited from his mother.[16] Vance was embarrassed that his new wife had more money than he did.[68] Weeks before their wedding, he wrote her, "Tell them [her family] the simple truth about me Darling, as I told it to you—that I am a poor man & ever likely to be. You may boast of nothing for me except my love for you. …I do hope they will all learn to love me."[68] Nevertheless, Gombroon was completed in 1887 and became their main home when Vance's health declined.[16] Surrounded by forests, it was "the ideal retreat in the mountains of North Carolina" and had gardens, orchards, and vineyards, along with a dairy, springhouse, and other outbuildings.[12]

In 1890, at the age of sixty, Vance gave more speeches than in any other year of his life.[12] His nervous affliction from his previous stroke became worse, and back in Black Mountain, he fell from a wagon.[12] His doctors feared he would go blind if they did not surgically remove one eye to save the other.[12] The surgery was performed in early 1891, but he never returned to full health.[13][16] Vance told William B. Bate, whom he sat next to in the Senate, "Misfortunes have their blessings, for surely no man can now deny that I have an eye single to the interests of my constituents."[70]

In a kindness not always seen by political opponents, the entire Senate voted to pay for a private secretary for Vance from their contingency funds.[12] However, Vance's health continued to decline from 1890 through 1894.[16] As travel was believed to be curative in the 19th century, he visited Egypt, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Scotland.[12] Vance told his son that he "was home-sick while abroad and that the trip had made him a better American."[12] In January 1894, he visited Jacksonville, Tampa, St. Augustine, and Suwannee Springs in Florida while the Senate was in session.[12][20] When he returned to Washington, D.C. in April 1894, he could no longer walk.[16] On April 14, 1894, Vance had another stroke, went into a coma, and died at his home in Washington D.C.[16][13]

Services were held in the Senate chamber on April 16, 1894, which were attended by President Grover Cleveland, Vice President Adlai Stevenson, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Melville Fuller and all but one of the associate justices, Secretary of State Walter Q. Gresham, Secretary of the Treasury John G. Carlisle, Attorney General Richard Olney, Post Master General Wilson S. Bissell, Secretary of the Navy Hilary A. Herbert, Secretary of the Interior M. Hoke Smith, Secretary of Agriculture Julius Sterling Morton, the Speaker of the House Charles Frederick Crisp, and members of both the House of Representatives and Senate.[12][54] The ambassador from England Sir Julian Paunceforte, other members of the diplomatic corps, and Bishop John J. Keane of Catholic University also attended.[12][54] For the service, Vance's desk and chair were draped in black, and the floral decorations included pine to represent North Carolina.[54] The service was followed by a funeral procession to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station.[12]

Next, a funeral train took Vance's body to Raleigh, North Carolina for another service, and from there to Asheville, North Carolina for burial.[16][6] He was accompanied by seven congressmen (John S. Henderson, William T. Crawford, and Sydenham B. Alexander of North Carolina; John C. Black of Illinois; Elijah V. Brookshire of Indiana; Luther M. Strong of Ohio; and Charles Daniels of New York), six senators (Matt W. Ransom of North Carolina, James Z. George of Mississippi, George Gray of Delaware, Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn of Kentucky, Fred DuBois of Idaho, and William E. Chandler of New Hampshire), the Secretary of the Senate William Ruffin Cox, and family members.[12] In Raleigh, the group was joined by Governor Elias Carr, former Governor Thomas Jordan Jarvis, North Carolina Attorney General Frank I. Osborne, state North Railroad Commissioner James W. Wilson, North Carolina Secretary of State Octavius Coke, State Treasurer Samuel McDowell Tate, Auditor of North Carolina R. M. Furman, Judge Alphonso Calhoun Avery of the North Carolina Supreme Court, Richard Henry Battle who was Vance's personal secretary during his governorship, former North Carolina. Attorney General Thomas S. Kenan, The News & Observer owner Josephus Daniels, Edward J. Hale of The Fayetteville Observer, and many others.[12][71]

Thousands of people lined the railroad tracks "to pay their last respects to one whom they loved and admired very much" as the funeral train headed south and west and stopped at towns and cities such as Richmond, Danville, Greensboro, Durham, and Raleigh.[13][16][12] Thousands passed through the railroad car to pay their respects, filling it with a variety of flowers.[12] Once the train arrived in Asheville, there were funeral services at First Presbyterian Church.[16] Surviving members of Vance's Rough and Ready Guard led a procession of 710 carriages from the church to Riverside Cemetery where nearly 10,000 mourners attended his funeral and burial, including people he formerly enslaved.[16][43][6] In 1890, the total population of Asheville was 10,235.[citation needed]

In his eulogy, former Governor Thomas Jordan Jarvis said, "He was the Mount Mitchell of all our great men, and in the affections and love of the people, he towered above them all. As ages to come will not be able to mar the grandeur and greatness of Mount Mitchell, so they will not be able to efface from the hearts and minds of the people the name of their beloved Vance."[72]

Vance was buried by his first wife, Harriette, in Riverside Cemetery in the Vance family plot.[29] Later, his second wife Florence had Vance moved to a grave in her family's plot in Riverside Cemetery.[29] Vance's children, who were all born to his first wife, successfully petitioned to court to return Vance to his original burial site.[29] Thus, Vance was buried three times in the same cemetery.[29]

At the time of his death, Vance had $152.07 in the bank; when his effects and property were sold, his estate totaled less than $5,000.[68]

Honors edit

 
Vance statue by Henry Jackson Ellicott, Raleigh, North Carolina
 
Vance statue by Gutzon Borglum, National Statuary Hall
 
Reconstruction of the cabin at the Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace State Historic Site

In 1953, Frontis W. Johnston wrote, "North Carolina has loved, idolized, and rewarded no other man in her history as she has Zebulon Baird Vance."[67] Johnston also states that North Carolina's towns "swarmed with literally hundreds of little Zebulons."[67]

There are several monuments and memorials dedicated to Vance:

There are many historic markers and historic sites about Vance:

  • The Vance Birthplace is a State Historic Site in Weaverville, North Carolina.[79]
  • The Historic Vance House and Civil War Museum is located in Statesville, North Carolina in his former residence.[80]
  • The "Zeb Vance House" North Carolina State Highway Historical Marker is in Statesville, North Carolina.[81]
  • The "Zebulon B. Vance" North Carolina State Highway Historical Marker is in Buncombe County, North Carolina.[82]
  • The "Camp Vance" North Carolina State Highway Historical Marker is near Morganton, North Carolina.[83]
  • The "Brothers in Service" Civil War Trails marker in Weaverville, North Carolina is about Vance and his brother Robert.[84]

Several locations, schools, and more bear Vance's name:

Several organizations bear his name:

  • Vance Masonic Lodge A.F.&A.M. No. 293 in Weaverville, North Carolina
  • The Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp No. 15 is called the Zebulon Baird Vance Camp[96]
  • Vance Policy Institute think tank for Asheville and Buncombe County[97]
  • The Zeb Vance Ruritan Club in Kittrell, North Carolina[98]
  • The Henderson, North Carolina chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy is the Zeb Vance Chapter[99]
  • The United Confederate Veterans Camp No. 681 was called the Zebulon Vance Camp in his honor.[100]
  • Vance County Schools in Henderson, North Carolina[88]

Also, on January 19, 1895, the United States Senate opened its floor for orations in his honor.[12]

Legacy edit

About Vance, F. Lane Williamson wrote, "Did he moderate his racial views in later years? Perhaps, but who knows? It’s fair to say, though, that his legacy is that he set the stage for North Carolina to be perceived as at least somewhat more racially tolerant and culturally progressive than its Deep South neighbors, a tradition that held through the 20th–century and beyond until quite recently."[101]

Samuel Wittkowsky, a Jewish intimate of Vance, wrote, "I speak for my race in North Carolina...the deceased has even by his words and writings demonstrated that he was their friend. His lecture on the Scattered Nation will ever remain green in the memory of my race, and will be one of the brightest jewels in his ever-liberal, fair, and untarnished escutcheon. And I venture the assertion that in the history of North Carolina, no Israelite has cast a vote against Z. B. Vance."[26] Annually on Vance's birthday for more than 75 years, the Jewish organization, B'nai B'rith, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy held a joint ceremony and laid a galax wreath at the Vance Monument in Asheville.[26] This event began in the late 1930s was discontinued in the early 2000s.[48][49]

In 2004, author Sharyn McCrumb wrote the novel Ghost Riders with a fictionalized account of Vance's life told in the first person.[102] She was also inspired to write The Ballad of Tom Dula because of Vance, saying "Despite his family's hard times after the early death of his father, Zeb Vance managed to get an education, read law, and get himself elected governor by the age of thirty. I thought that Vance could counteract the [negative Appalachian] stereotypes..."[103]

Always a controversial political figure, Vance became even more of an issue in the early 21st century because of his connection to slavery and his history of racism.[10][92][104] In September 2017, the University of North Carolina at Asheville's Department of History and the Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace State Historic Site held a two-day symposium, "Zebulon B. Vance Reconsidered."[105] Kimberly Floyd, site manager of the Vance Birthplace and symposium co-convener said, "Zebulon Vance was a prominent figure in our state for four decades, and his is the story of both a hero and scoundrel." In August 2020, the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina at Asheville voted to rename Vance Hall because Vance "maintained racist stances that do not align with UNC Asheville’s core values."[10] In October 2020, the Charlotte–Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education voted to remove his name from its high school.[92] In 2021, the City of Asheville and Buncombe County both voted to remove the Vance Monument from Pack Square in downtown Asheville.[104] Also in 2021, Asheville City Schools changed the name of its Vance Elementary School.[89]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b "Zebulon B. Vance". Britannica. Retrieved April 10, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "Vance, Zebulon Baird 1830 – 1894". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved April 9, 2022.
  3. ^ a b Ready, Milton (June 25, 2015). "When past is present: Zeb Vance and his monument". Mountain Xpress. Retrieved February 21, 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Tucker, Glenn (1966). Zeb Vance: Champion of Personal Freedom. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill – via Internet Archive.
  5. ^ a b c Leonard C. Schlup, and James Gilbert Ryan, eds. Historical Dictionary of the Gilded Age (2003) p 511.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Elliston, Jon (January 19, 2005). "Zeb Vance: No Simple Man". Mountain Xpress. Retrieved April 10, 2022.
  7. ^ Weil, Julie Zauzmer; Blanco, Adrian; Dominguez, Leo (January 10, 2022). "More than 1,700 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 29, 2022.
  8. ^ "Congress slaveowners", The Washington Post, January 27, 2022, retrieved January 29, 2022
  9. ^ Swofford, Stan (January 21, 2005). "UNC-CH Confronts Its Past IN Bell Dispute Family Defends Ancestor After Racism Charges Arise". Greensboro News and Record. Retrieved May 12, 2023.
  10. ^ a b c d "UNC Asheville Board of Trustees Passes Resolution to Rename Vance and Hoey Halls, Calls for Task Force to Study and Review Names of All Campus Buildings". News And Events | UNC Asheville. August 28, 2020. Retrieved April 10, 2022.
  11. ^ Vance Birthplace, official website December 9, 2003, at the Wayback Machine. North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. Retrieved on April 3, 2012.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bj bk bl bm bn bo bp bq br bs bt bu bv bw bx by bz ca cb cc cd ce cf cg ch ci Dowd, Clement (1897). Life of Zebulon B. Vance. Charleston, South Carolina: Observer Printing and Publishing House. Retrieved April 10, 2022 – via Hathi Trust.
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External links edit

  • Works by or about Zebulon Vance at Internet Archive
  • Online Books by Zebulon Baird Vance
Party political offices
Preceded by Democratic nominee for Governor of North Carolina
1876 		Succeeded by
U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from North Carolina's 8th congressional district
1858–1861 		Succeeded by
Civil War
Political offices
Preceded by Governor of North Carolina
1862–1865 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Governor of North Carolina
1877–1879 		Succeeded by
U.S. Senate
Preceded by U.S. senator (Class 3) from North Carolina
1879–1894
Served alongside: Matt Ransom 		Succeeded by

February 15, 2024
zebulon, vance, zebulon, baird, vance, 1830, april, 1894, american, lawyer, politician, served, 37th, 43rd, governor, north, carolina, senator, from, north, carolina, confederate, officer, during, american, civil, vanceunited, states, senatorfrom, north, carol. Zebulon Baird Vance May 13 1830 April 14 1894 was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 37th and 43rd governor of North Carolina a U S Senator from North Carolina and a Confederate officer during the American Civil War 1 2 Zeb VanceUnited States Senatorfrom North CarolinaIn office March 4 1879 April 14 1894Preceded byAugustus S MerrimonSucceeded byThomas Jarvis37th and 43rd Governor of North CarolinaIn office January 1 1877 February 5 1879LieutenantThomas J JarvisPreceded byCurtis BrogdenSucceeded byThomas JarvisIn office September 8 1862 May 29 1865Preceded byHenry ClarkSucceeded byWilliam HoldenMember of the U S House of Representatives from North Carolina s 8th districtIn office December 7 1858 March 3 1861Preceded byThomas L ClingmanSucceeded byRobert B VanceNorth Carolina SenateIn office December 1854 November 1856Succeeded byDavid ColemanPersonal detailsBorn 1830 05 13 May 13 1830Reems Creek Buncombe County North Carolina U S DiedApril 14 1894 1894 04 14 aged 63 Washington D C U S Resting placeRiverside CemeteryPolitical partyWhig 1852 1856 American 1857 Conservative Party 1862 1868 Democratic 1868 1894 EducationWashington College AcademyUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillSignatureMilitary serviceAllegianceConfederateRankColonelUnit26th North Carolina Infantry RegimentRough and Ready GuardsBattles warsBattle of New BernSeven Days BattlesA prolific writer and noted public speaker Vance became one of the most influential Southern leaders of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era periods 3 4 As a leader of the New South Vance favored the rapid modernization of the Southern economy railroad expansion school construction and reconciliation with the North 5 In addition he frequently spoke out against antisemitism 6 Considered progressive by many during his lifetime Vance was also a slave owner and is now regarded as a racist by some modern historians and biographers 6 7 8 9 10 Contents 1 Early life 2 Pre Civil War career 2 1 Attorney 2 2 North Carolina Senate 2 3 Journalism 2 4 U S Congress 2 4 1 Salaries and deficits 2 4 2 Slavery and secession 3 Civil War 3 1 Soldier 3 2 Governor 1st term 3 2 1 Campaign 3 2 2 War Governor 3 3 Governor 2nd term 3 4 Prisoner 4 Postwar career 4 1 Attorney 4 2 Fourteenth Amendment 4 3 Lecture circuit 4 4 Governor 3rd term 4 4 1 Education 4 4 2 Railroads 4 5 U S Senate 4 5 1 Reconstruction 4 5 2 Farmers Alliance 4 5 3 National issues 5 Ku Klux Klan 6 Personal life 7 Honors 8 Legacy 9 See also 10 References 11 External linksEarly life edit nbsp Vance Cabin Reems Creek North Carolina in the 19th century nbsp Fireplace inside Zebulon B Vance Birthplace cabin in the 19th century nbsp Vance c 1845 to 1850Vance was born in a log cabin in the settlement of Reems Creek in Buncombe County North Carolina near present day Weaverville and was baptized at the Presbyterian Church on Reems Creek 11 2 12 He was the third of eight children of Mira Margaret Baird and David Vance Jr a farmer and innkeeper 13 12 14 His paternal grandfather David Vance was a member of the North Carolina House of Commons and a colonel in the American Revolutionary War serving under George Washington at Valley Forge 15 His maternal grandfather was Zebulon Baird a state senator from Buncombe County North Carolina 12 His uncle was Congressman Robert Brank Vance namesake of his elder brother Congressman Robert B Vance 2 Around 1833 the Vance family moved to Lapland now Marshall North Carolina 14 There David Vance operated a stand providing drovers with provisions as they moved hogs and other animals along the Buncombe Turnpike to markets to the south and east 14 Although frequently short of cash the family enslaved as many as eighteen people 15 Vance s family had an unusually large library for its era and location left to them by an uncle 12 At the age of six Vance attended schools operated by M Woodson Esq first at Flat Creek and later on the French Broad River 16 17 Both were far enough from home that he had to board with others 12 He also was a student at a school in Lapland run by Jane Hughey 12 While a youth Vance broke his thigh when he fell from a tree 12 This was treated by confining Vance in a box as was common medical care at the time 12 As a result of this injury his right leg was shorter requiring him to wear a taller heel on the right shoe 12 Even so it was said that Vance had a peculiar and slightly ambling gait 12 When he was thirteen years old in fall 1843 Vance went to the Washington College in Tennessee 2 4 In January 1844 his father died from a construction accident forcing Vance to withdraw before the school year was over 16 4 Mira Vance sold much of the family s property to pay her husband s many debts and to support her seven children 16 As one writer noted the family was embarrassed with debt 12 She moved her family to nearby Asheville bringing along enslaved women and children as household workers 13 16 However the family still lacked the money to send Vance back to school in Tennessee 16 Instead Vance and his brother Robert attended Newton Academy in Asheville 4 To help support his family Vance worked for John H Patton as a hotel clerk in Warm Springs now Hot Springs North Carolina 12 4 In Asheville Vance studied law under attorney John W Woodfin 4 When he was 21 years old Vance wrote to a family friend David L Swain asking for a loan to study law in college 16 4 Swain was a former North Carolina governor and then president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 16 Swain was also an elementary schoolmate of Vance s mother 12 Swain arranged for a 300 loan for Vance from the university 15 Vance attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill starting in July 1851 and had a brilliant academic year 13 One of his classmates Major James W Wilson recalled Vance s arrival in Chapel Hill with homemade shoes and clothes about three inches of between pants and shoes showing his sturdy ankles 12 Another classmate Kemp P Battle wrote Vance had a brain large and active a memory tenacious a nature overflowing with joyous love of fun and to a surprising degree accurate information of many subjects and many authors 12 While at the university Vance was a member of the Dialectic Society which helped improve his oratory skills as well as his ability to speak extemporarily 12 He also joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity 18 19 Vance received an LL D in 1852 and repaid the loan from the university with interest 18 12 Vance then went to Raleigh where he studied law with Judge William Horn Battle of the North Carolina Supreme Court and Samuel F Phillips former Solicitor General of the United States 20 Pre Civil War career editAttorney edit nbsp Vance s first law office Asheville North CarolinaOn January 1 1852 Vance was admitted to the North Carolina Bar and received his county court license in Raleigh 15 He returned to Asheville where he practiced law 13 Vance said I went out to Court horseback and carried a pair of saddle bags with a change of shirts and the North Carolina Form book 12 Almost immediately the Buncombe County magistrates elected Vance as Solicitor of the Court of Pleas 13 12 He was admitted to the state s superior courts in 1853 13 In 1858 he became partners with attorney William Caleb Brown 4 Although he did not always prepare fully for cases Vance was skilled at reading the jury and remembering every detail of testimony 12 However his success in court was usually the result of wit humor boisterous eloquence and clever retorts not knowledge of the law 13 North Carolina Senate edit After canvassing for Whig presidential candidate Winfield Scott in 1852 Vance became interested in his entry into politics 16 In 1853 he was a delegate representing Buncombe County at a railroad convention in Cumberland Gap Tennessee 14 The goal of the convention was to convince the Charleston and Cincinnati Railroad to build a route through the mountains in Western North Carolina 14 Next Vance ran as a Whig candidate for the North Carolina Senate winning with a term starting in December 1854 16 Vance was a Whig in the mode of Henry Clay 16 He wrote I was raised in the Whig faith and taught to revere the names of Clay Webster and other great leaders of that party 16 Whig policies were more beneficial to Western North Carolina and its smaller farms where Vance was from while the Democratic Party of that era tended to advocate for the owners of large slave plantations found in Eastern North Carolina 16 While in the legislature Vance worked on issues related to transportation in Western North Carolina including introducing a bill for a public road in Yancey County and another bill to authorize subscriptions to fund the French Broad and Greenville Railroad 14 He also supported extending the Western North Carolina Railroad into the state s mountain counties favoring a route that would take the tracks to Knoxville Tennessee by way of Asheville North Carolina 14 When the Whig Party collapsed over the issue of slavery in 1854 Vance refused to join the primarily Southern Democratic Party or the anti slavery Republicans ultimately settling on the American Party or Know Nothings 16 4 However Vance lost his campaign for reelection to the North Carolina Senate in 1856 to David Coleman 16 Journalism edit In March 1855 John D Hyman of the Asheville Spectator convinced Vance to join the newspaper as an editorial assistant 21 He predicted that Vance would have a brilliant career in the editorial line 21 This weekly newspaper was published from 1853 to 1858 and was the leading Whig paper in the region 22 23 One of the stories Vance wrote was about the search for Dr Elisha Mitchell who disappeared in June 1857 having fallen to his death while trying to prove which peak was the highest in North Carolina 4 Mitchell taught Vance geology at the University of North Carolina and Vance immediately volunteered for the search party 4 His account of the search published in the Spectator in July 1857 is considered the most complete record of the tragic event 4 Vance stopped working as joint editor of the Spectator after a year but became half owner of the newspaper 4 However Hyman s steadfast support of Vance in the Spectator was a huge help to Vance s political career 4 The opposition paper the Asheville News wrote Mr Vance is the Spectator s specialty and at every mention of his name it sputters and snaps and snarls like a cat with its tail in a steel trap To question the correctness of his views on a public issue the Spectator seems to regard as little short of treason 4 U S Congress edit nbsp Vance 35th Congress photo by Julian Vannerson 1859In 1858 Vance ran for a seat in the U S Congress opened by the resignation of Thomas Lanier Clingman 13 For this campaign he went on a fifteen county speaking tour that set the mountains on fire 24 Vance was elected for a term starting in December 1858 13 2 At 28 years old he was the youngest member of Congress at the time 15 He was reelected in 1859 over his former political opponent David Coleman 2 4 Salaries and deficits edit When Congress proposed giving a 10 000 or 25 increase in fringe benefits to each representative in the next session Vance spoke out 4 He said I do not think he my successor is entitled to 10 000 more for miscellaneous items than I am myself the whole bill reminds me very much of the bills I have seen of fast young men at fashionable hotels For two days board 5 sundries 50 It is like a comet a very small body with an exceedingly great tail 4 Similarly he showed a dislike for the recurring Treasury deficit Ignoring the figures and charts presented by his colleagues Vance said As we are in debt and spending more than our income and our income is derived principally from the tariff we have to do one of three things either raise that income lower our expenses or walk into the insolvent court and file our schedule I do not think there is or ever was a political economist on earth who could deny these propositions 4 Slavery and secession edit While serving in Congress Vance was pro slavery 16 saying in March 1860 Plainly and unequivocally common sense says keep the slave where he is now in servitude The interest of the slave himself imperatively demands it The interest of the master of the United States of the world nay of humanity itself says keep the slave in his bondage treat him humanely teach him Christianity care for him in sickness and old age and make his bondage light as may be but above all keep him a slave and in strict subordination for that is his normal condition the one in which alone he can promote the interest of himself or his fellows 25 Despite his support for the institution of slavery Vance was openly against North Carolina s secession from the union 26 preferring a strategy where both slavery and the union could be preserved 6 In writing to a friend he advised caution about secession We have everything to gain and nothing on earth to lose by delay but by too hasty action we may take a fatal step that we never can retrace may lose a heritage that we can never recover though we seek it earnestly and with tears 27 However Vance was in favor of a secession convention so that the people of North Carolina could make their own decision 27 In March 1861 Vance traveled throughout North Carolina trying to persuade the State not to follow South Carolina by seceding 17 In April he was addressing a large crowd when a telegraph was read announcing the firing on Fort Sumter and President Lincoln s call for 75 000 volunteers 17 At that moment Vance recalled sadly changing into a secessionist as he preferred to shed northern rather than southern blood 17 On the spot he shifted his speech to a call to fight for South Carolina 17 After the Battle of Fort Sumter Vance resigned from Congress and headed home to Buncombe County 16 26 Civil War edit nbsp Vance in the Civil War nbsp Governor Vance on his Inauguration Day 1862Soldier edit On May 4 1861 two weeks before North Carolina seceded Vance raised a company of local men known as the Rough and Ready Guards and became their captain 13 27 The Rough and Ready Guards became part of Company F 14th North Carolina Infantry and encamped near Morganton North Carolina 27 13 By June 1861 Vance and the 14th were in Suffolk Virginia helping to defend Norfolk 13 27 That August Vance was elected colonel of the 26th North Carolina Infantry Regiment stationed at Fort Macon in Carteret County North Carolina 27 The Rough and Ready Guards followed Vance to the 26th 17 Vance and the 26th engaged in the Battle of New Bern in March 1862 13 15 Although outnumbered four to one Vance s troops held back the enemy for five hours and were the last Confederates to leave the battlefield 27 Vance wrote his wife praising the performance of his men 27 Even in their 35 mile forced retreat Vance showed bravery 27 He nearly drowned swimming 75 yards across the flooded Bryce s Creek to get boats for his men the three soldiers who swam with him drowned 27 In July 1862 Vance and the 26th fought at Malvern Hill outside of Richmond Virginia 13 15 27 The Confederates were not victorious but Vance again showed unflinching leadership 27 When North Carolina needed a new governor his name was immediately mentioned 27 Governor 1st term edit Campaign edit In 1862 Vance ran for governor as the soldier s candidate and easily won over secessionist Democrat William J Johnston of Charlotte 15 28 13 Vance did not leave his troops to campaign nor did he give any speeches or present a platform 24 Instead he wrote a letter that was published in the Fayetteville Observer saying If therefore my fellow citizens believe that I could serve the great Cause better as Governor than I am now doing and should see proper to confer this responsibility upon me without solicitation on my part I should not feel at liberty to decline it however conscious of my own unworthiness 27 His campaign was overseen by William W Holden of Raleigh s North Carolina Standard and Edward J Hale of the Fayetteville Observer 24 17 27 Holden had been driven out of the Democratic Party in 1860 because he opposed secession 24 Holden like Vance was now a member of the Conservative Democratic Party of North Carolina a coalition of former Whigs and Democrats who were against secession 28 13 12 Holden simply wrote that voters should elect the man who defended their homes noting that Johnston was at home tending to his railroads while Vance was in the face of the foe with his sword drawn ready for action 24 It also helped that Johnston s Democratic party could be blamed for high prices conscription military defeats suffering of the soldiers and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus 24 Vance received 54 423 of 74 871 total votes carrying all but twelve of the state s counties 24 This continues to be the largest margin of victory for a governor s race in the history of North Carolina 27 Vance was serving with the 26th in the trenches at Petersburg Virginia when he learned about the outcome of the election 29 20 He resigned his commission and traveled to Raleigh to become governor 29 At the time he was 32 years old 6 War Governor edit For his inauguration on September 8 1862 Vance s old regimental band the Johnny Rebs performed Governor Vance s Inauguration March 27 24 During his address Vance said he would prosecute the war until the South obtained its independence 24 This helped calm the North Carolina Democrats and the Confederate government who both feared Vance would rejoin the union or withdraw from the Confederacy 24 General Robert E Lee said Vance s oratory was worth 5 000 soldiers 30 Vance s first objective was to confine the Union troops in the eastern counties hold the state s main port Wilmington and protect the Weldon Railroad 24 Thus he worked with the Confederate war department to add troops at Kinston North Carolina to protect the railroad and watch the enemy encampments 24 Despite Vance s continued requests to Richmond for military reinforcements he was ignored and North Carolina s defenses failed when 10 000 Union troops advanced on Kinston in December 1862 24 To help solve the shortage of soldiers Vance offered amnesty to all deserters who returned to service large numbers of North Carolina s soldiers returned to active duty in 1863 24 Vance aspired to provide the state s troops with needed food clothing and weapons 13 He also demonstrated concern for the soldiers families 16 He continued to operate salt works on the coast selling the salt at one third of its value and distributing salt supplies to every county for meat preservation 24 17 He also proposed a welfare system and kept the textile mills operational 16 To achieve this Vance relied on blockade runners to export North Carolina s cotton abroad 15 This yielded funds to provide food and money for the general population and to keep the mills open the legislature was able to issue 6 000 000 for the care of impoverished citizens and keep the mills open 24 The blockade runners also brought needed shoes blankets and medicine 17 Vance ensured that his state s soldiers were kept clothed by having women and children fashion new uniforms in their homes with material manufactured in the state s mills 15 17 As a result North Carolina was the only state to clothe and equip its regiments during the Civil War 15 Vance also shared surpluses with the rest of the Confederacy General James Longstreet s troops received 12 000 uniforms from North Carolina after the Battle of Chickamauga 15 Vance was a major proponent of individual rights and local self government often putting him at odds with the Confederate government 13 When President Jefferson Davis announced plans to indefinitely imprison Southerners suspected of disloyalty without a trial Vance refused to deprive North Carolinians of their constitutional rights saying he would rather recall the state s soldiers fighting in Virginia and order them to protect his constituents by force if necessary 31 32 Davis did not risk challenging Vance as a result North Carolina was the only state to observe the right of habeas corpus and keep its courts fully functional during the war 13 Vance also opposed Confederate conscription practices which became more severe as Confederate defeats mounted 24 He was especially against the policy that allowed plantation owners and rich businessmen to avoid fighting by paying others to serve in their place a practice described as creating a rich man s war and a poor man s fight 27 Postwar Vance testified in the hearing investigating George Pickett s execution of 22 alleged Confederate deserters in the aftermath of the Battle of New Bern 33 He testified that the North Carolinians had joined on the understanding that they would be used only for local defense and that the Confederate government did not keep faith with these local troops who were transfer red to the regular service in violation of their enlistment agreement 33 His testimony questioned the legality of Pickett s decision to hang Confederate deserters who had later sided with the Union and put Pickett at risk of prosecution for war crimes 33 In his unpublished autobiography Vance stated that his main reason for supporting the Confederate government was to preserve the institution of slavery 34 Historian Selig Adler wrote As war governor Vance endeared himself forever to his people He mitigated the horrors of war by insisting on the precedence of civil law and stoutly protected the state from the uncomfortable militarism of the Confederate government 26 Governor 2nd term edit Vance was reelected as governor in 1864 defeating former supporter Unionist Democrat and now peace candidate William Woods Holden 16 In early April 1865 General William T Sherman s troops neared Raleigh North Carolina 35 Vance wrote to Sherman requesting a meeting hoping to prevent the state s capital city from being pillaged 35 He requested safe conduct to discuss North Carolina surrendering to the Union 36 Two of Vance s men met with Sherman although they did not reach an agreement about ending the war they did save Raleigh 35 Sherman was willing to talk to Vance but by then Vance had been called to meet with Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet in Charlotte North Carolina 35 At that meeting the Confederate government released Vance from any obligations to defend the Confederacy 35 nbsp Blandwood Mansion s west parlor where Vance surrenderedOn April 26 1865 Vance learned that Confederate General Joseph E Johnston had surrendered his forces to Sherman at the James Bennett farmhouse near Durham North Carolina 13 On April 28 Vance gave a final proclamation to the people of his state telling both civilians and soldiers to retire quietly in their homes and exert themselves in preserving order 24 37 He then surrendered to General John M Schofield in the west parlor of Blandwood Mansion in Greensboro North Carolina on May 2 1865 13 35 38 Schofield accepted Vance s surrender and told him to go to Statesville North Carolina where Mrs Vance and their children were living as he had no orders for Vance s arrest 13 26 Some have said that Vance left Raleigh when it was captured by Sherman and that his house in Statesville was a temporary state capitol 39 40 These claims emerged as part of a political attack against Vance by Republicans during the 1876 governor s race 35 There is no evidence that Vance conducted official business in Statesville rather it seems he relinquished the office of governor once he left Raleigh 39 40 On May 29 1865 William Woods Holden Vance s former political opponent was appointed governor of North Carolina by President Andrew Johnson 41 Prisoner edit Vance was arrested in Statesville on May 13 1865 his 35th birthday by General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick 13 26 42 Samuel Wittkowsky the man who gave prisoner Vance a wagon ride to the train station noted that Vance was silently shedding tears at first 12 Then wiping his eyes Vance expressed concern for his wife and children who had no money to live on and worried about the indignities that North Carolina might suffer in the aftermath of the war 12 After a short imprisonment in Raleigh Vance arrived at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington D C on May 20 1865 12 There he shared a small cell with John Letcher the former Governor of Virginia 24 Each man had an iron bed and chair 12 They had to pay for their meals which came from a local restaurant 12 Vance filed for parole on June 3 1865 using President Johnson s amnesty program 13 At the time Vance s wife was very ill and Johnson s sympathies lay with reuniting the family 16 He paroled Vance on July 6 1865 after an imprisonment of 47 days 13 43 Vance was formally pardoned on March 11 1867 although no formal charges were filed against him before his arrest during his imprisonment or during his parole 43 Postwar career editAttorney edit nbsp Vance s residence in Charlotte North Carolina in the 19th centuryAfter the war Vance practiced law in Statesville briefly before moving to Charlotte North Carolina where he formed a practice with Clement Dow and R D Johnson 13 16 35 In addition to Charlotte he had court cases in Concord Dallas Lexington Lincolnton Monroe and Salisbury 12 Among his clients was former Confederate soldier Tom Dula who was accused of murdering his girlfriend Laura Foster in 1866 16 While he succeeded in having the trial moved from Wilkesboro to Statesville believing Dula could not receive a fair trial in Wilkes County Dula was nevertheless convicted and although he was given a new trial on appeal Dula was convicted again and hanged on May 1 1868 44 To the end of his life Vance maintained that Dula was innocent 16 This high profile murder is the subject of the folk song Tom Dooley 16 Fourteenth Amendment edit Vance and other former Confederates were banned from returning to public office by the Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 45 Vance was depressed during this period and resented this limitation especially since the same Amendment that kept him out of the politics he loved granted African American men citizenship and full political rights 16 Around 1868 he began supporting Conservative Party politicians using racist dialogue to gain other supporters 16 In February 1868 Vance attended the North Carolina Conservation Convention also called the Rebel Convention in Raleigh 46 47 The Dailey Standard noted that the convention was noteworthy for its hatred of the government and formerly enslaved people 46 After many calls from the attendees for him to speak Vance spontaneously talked about his lack of prejudice toward the formerly enslaved commending their conduct and fidelity during the war However he affirmed his belief that only educated whites should vote in the South 47 In 1870 the North Carolina legislature appointed Vance to the United States Senate but because of the Fourteenth Amendment he was not eligible to serve unless authorized by a two thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress 35 13 42 Vance spent two years unsuccessfully petitioning the Republican dominated Senate to seat him he ended up resigning from the appointment 35 42 20 Lecture circuit edit While he was kept out of politics Vance earned income in the lecture circuit 15 His first important lecture was The Duties of Defeat which he gave at the University of North Carolina s commencement on June 7 1866 26 Shortly afterward he was speaking in venues ranging from county fairs to large lecture halls in Philadelphia New Orleans and Baltimore 26 By the early 1870s Vance had a national reputation as an outstanding platform speaker 26 His style was peculiarly his own 26 He had a remarkable ability to adapt to every type of audience using local illustrations and interest and his keen sparkling wit Like Lincoln Vance was one of the few men who could successfully combine incessant jocularity with seriousness and get credit for seriousness 26 Some of his popular speeches were The Humorous Side of Politics and The Demagogue 26 He also discussed the aspects of the Civil War in The Last Days of the War in North Carolina and The Political and Social South During the War 26 Starting around 1870 Vance gave a speech called Scattered Nation hundreds of times praising Jews and calling for religious tolerance and justice 26 Although Vance s motives for Scattered Nation are not fully known it was not for political gain as there were fewer than 500 Jews in North Carolina at the time and antisemitism was common 26 One modern writer suggests Vance s perspective may have been impacted by his involvement with Freemasonry as this organization accepted Jews 48 Historian Leonard Rogoff president of Jewish Heritage North Carolina also notes that Vance established a relationship with Samuel Wittkowsky a Jew and fellow Mason 48 When Vance was arrested he was physically unable to walk to the train station and was only offered a mule by the federal troops Vance was rescued from this humiliation by Wittkowsky who gave Vance a ride in his wagon 48 The two men s later friendship may have impacted Vance s perspective 49 26 Yet within the Scattered Nation call for tolerance to Jews Vance also made his prejudices clear saying In contrast to the Jews the African negro had contributed nothing to the civilization of mankind and that laws and partisan courts alike have been used to force African American men into an equality with those whom he could not equal 16 Governor 3rd term edit nbsp Vance c 1877 1879 painting in the North Carolina State ArchivesIn 1875 President Ulysses S Grant signed an amnesty bill that included Vance 16 Vance ran for an open seat in the U S Senate but lost to Augustus Merrimon 16 In 1876 Vance was elected to his third term of Governor as North Carolina 45 However he only served two years of the four year term 13 His swearing in in 1877 was accompanied by festivities that began a tradition of lavish gubernatorial inaugurations in the state 50 Education edit As a postwar governor Vance was considered progressive for his era 51 He proposed agricultural reforms the expansion of teacher training through normal schools and the addition of more public schools including separate but equal access for African Americans 16 45 32 15 In his 1877 message to the legislature about creating normal schools Vance says A school of a similar character should be established for the education of colored teachers the want of which is more deeply felt by the black race even than the white In addition to the fact that it is our plain duty to make no discrimination in the matter of public education their desire for education is an extremely credible one and should be gratified as far as our means will permit In short I regard it as an unmistakable policy to imbue these black people with a hearty North Carolina feeling and make them cease to look abroad for the aids to their progress and civilization and the protection of their rights as they have been taught to do and teach them to look to their State instead 12 Two years later his message to the legislature announced that the Board of Education had created two normal schools a summer institute at the University of North Carolina for white teachers and a new permanent institution the State Colored Normal School for black teachers at the Howard School in Fayetteville 12 52 The State Colored Normal School became Fayetteville State University 52 Railroads edit During his third term as governor Vance brought the railroad to Western North Carolina finally realizing his dream from the meeting at Cumberland Gap in 1853 16 14 In his first message to the legislature on January 13 1877 he suggested that convicts should be sent to work on the Western North Carolina Railroad in McDowell County 14 Many of the state s convicts were freed slaves arrested under North Carolina s vagrancy laws which essentially allowed the imprisonment of those without jobs 16 Having found a free labor source Vance then had to resolve a cash shortfall the State did not have the funds to both equip and transport the convicts 14 He turned to J E Rankin chair of the Buncombe County Commission asking that local elites provide the needed 25 000 14 When Rankin sent a negative reply Vance wrote a heated response 14 He then asked the Federal government 53 Another problem facing Vance was that this railroad was the greatest engineering challenge east of the Rockies requiring a climb of some 1 000 feet 300 m in just over 3 miles 4 8 km 14 One modern historian notes that the Blue Ridge railroad project became Vance s personal crusade 14 Despite his ambitious goal of completing the railroad in two years Vance wanted the convicts to be treated well 14 In July 1877 he wrote the Penitentiary Board when he learned that convicts working on both the Chester amp Lenoir Narrow Gauge Railroad and the Spartanburg and Asheville Railroad had been subjected to cruel treatment including being overworked and whipped 14 Vance wrote that such conditions were not to be tolerated for a moment and requested immediate punishment of those who were guilty of such disgraceful conduct 14 However the state only provided seven cents a day to feed each convict and the schedule worked the men seven days a week 14 Despite Vance s intervention at least 125 of the 558 convicts died because of inclement weather inadequate housing lack of food and dangerous working conditions such as the cave ins and accidents at the Swannanoa Tunnel that killed 21 people 16 14 Guards also shot men trying to escape 14 Historian Gordan McKinney says This episode thereby qualifies as one of the most egregious industrial construction disasters in Appalachian history 14 Yet Vance continued to push for the grueling pace of work 14 In his January 1879 address to the legislature Vance acknowledged some problems with the convict labor program 14 However he never acknowledged his role in the tragedy 14 What his voting public remembered was that the new railroad network transported supplies to farms and factories and then to markets helping to stimulate the economy across the state 42 U S Senate edit In 1878 Vance was again elected to the United States Senate where he became a leader of the Democratic Party 13 16 Although Vance fought for Southern interests while in the Senate he showed little bitterness towards the North 13 As a result he helped unify Congress which was still struggling with the discord between North and South 42 Vance was reelected to the Senate in 1885 and 1891 serving until he died in 1894 13 During his tenure he chaired the committee on enrolled bills chaired the committee on privileges and elections served on the joint committee of the library and served on the finance committee during the McKinley Tariff debates 2 54 Reconstruction editIn one of his earliest speeches before the Senate Vance advocated for H R 2 which called for the removal of military oversight in Southern elections the repeal of laws that gave Federal marshals control of Southern elections and the removal of the requirement for Federal Court jurors to take the oath of allegiance 12 Vance said Peace then came no not peace but the end of war came no not the end of war but the end of legitimate civilized war and for three years you dallied with us One day we were treated as though we were in the Union and as though we had legitimate State governments in operation another day we were treated as though we were out of the Union and our State governments were rebellious usurpations You deposed our State governments and ejected from office every official from Governor to township constable and remitted us to a state of chaos You disenfranchised at least ten percent of our citizens embracing the wisest best and most experienced You enfranchised slaves the lowest and most ignorant and you placed them over them as leaders of a class of men who have attained to the highest positions of infamy known to modern ages The new governments went to work and in a short space of four years they plundered those eleven Southern States to the extent of 262 000 000 that is to say they took all that we had that was amenable to larceny It would be well enough for Republican leaders to remember that the inflexible law of compensation exists in politics as well as in other things If we violate the laws of health we suffer bodily pains or early dissolution if we violate the laws of society we suffer in public esteem if we violate the laws of man we are subject to its pains and penalties if we violate the laws of God we will suffer the penalties of sin if we violate the laws of nature we can reap none of the benefits which our knowledge of them now enables us to derive therefrom So it is in politics 12 Later on in his speech Vance asked Was it the Union you fought for or political supremacy 12 He pointed out that the nation has benefitted from the leadership of other political parties 12 He also said To suppose the States are either unable unwilling or too corrupt to hold peaceful and honest elections is to declare unmistakably that the people therein are incapable of self government For one I can say with unspeakable pride and absolute truth that the people of North Carolina who sent me here are able willing and virtuous enough to fulfill these and all other higher functions of government that they have ever done so since the keels of Raleigh s ships first grated upon the white sands of her shores and God helping them they and their children will continue to do so if not destroyed by centralization 12 Vance also supported the Blair Education Bill which requested federal funding to help educate the freed slaves in the South 12 Although Vance says I admit that there is no special provision in the constitution or perhaps one looking directly toward it for public education But the men who formed the constitution had no idea that there would be the great civil war that occurred They had no idea that 500 000 slaves would be liberated by that war and still less of an idea that the 500 000 slaves would be forced into absolute equality of citizenship They had no idea that their institutions and work of their hand would ever be committed to ignorant and unlettered Africans for protection and preservation 12 Vance also pointed out North Carolina s successes in creating schools to educate the freed slaves 12 In a speech on January 30 1890 regarding Senate Bill 1121 which authorized people of color to emigrate from Southern states Vance comes close to speaking against slavery saying Those of us in the South who had deprecated the war and deplored the agitation which led to it as we sat in the ashes of our own homes and scraped ourselves with potsherds of desolation yet consoled ourselves for the slaughter of our kindred and the devastation of our fields by the reflection that this at least was the end that the great original wrong committed by our fathers had at last been atoned for 12 Yet Vance s racism shows when he talks about reconstruction 12 He said The truth is he the former slave began to prosper when the Southern whites took control Progress for him would have been impossible under his own rule as it was for the whites Ten more years of such government as reconstruction fixed upon the South would have made the fairest portion of the American continent a wilderness In short it would have been Africanized 12 However Vance is glad to say that North Carolina is one of the States in the South where there is the least complaint of infringement of the colored man s rights either at the ballot box or in the courts of justice That there are instances of mistreatment and occasionally of cruelty to the negros now and then occurring in the South I candidly admit and regret 12 Vance also outlined his vision of the future with a bit of sarcasm The millennium has not yet arrived in the land of reconstruction the reign of perfect righteousness of absolute justice has not yet been established south of Mason and Dixon s line though of course it is in full operation north of that imaginary division There is no suppression of the popular vote by jerrymander or otherwise there is no purchase of the floating vote in blocks of five no ejection of colored children from white schools or colored men from theaters and barbers chairs and where we may hope that in the process of time and in the spread of intelligence and increased appreciation for the virtues of the negroes one black man may soon be sent to Congress from the North that some railroad attorney or millionaire will make room in the Senate of the United States for the colored brother that one colored postmaster for a white town may be appointed in the North that in the State of Kansas the soil so prolific in friendships for the colored man a respectable negro duly nominated on the Republican ticket may receive the full vote of his party and not be scratched almost to the point of defeat by those who love him as he was in Topeka that one accomplished colored man may be sent abroad to represent his country in some other land than Hayti sic or Liberia 12 In reality Vance believed in white supremacy 12 He said I am not only willing but anxious to have justice done them in everything and to do all that may be required of me to aid them former slaves in the difficulties of their position but I am not willing that they should rule my people 12 Farmers Alliance edit Vance also faced a political challenge with the Farmers Alliance in North Carolina 5 15 Some claimed Vance made concessions with this organization to gain reelection to the Senate because the Farmers Alliance essentially served as a third political party at the time 12 On the flip side Vance was accused of being insincere in his dealings with the Farmers Alliance such as introducing a bill on their behalf with no effort made towards getting it passed 12 However from the beginning Vance tended to side with the masses including the farming class 12 In addition both Vance and the farmers agreed on the Sherman Antitrust Act 12 Furthermore the organization s origins in North Carolina started with Vance 12 Because Vance was against tariffs which he felt enriched the few and impoverished the many he encouraged North Carolina s farmers to organize so they could collectively defend themselves against outside forces 12 Later he introduced Senate Bill 2806 aka the sub treasury scheme at the request of North Carolina s first Commissioner of Agriculture Leonidas L Polk who had become president of the National Farmers Alliance and Industrial Union 12 However after investigating the sub treasury scheme Vance came to believe that it was both impracticable and unconstitutional 12 Although he was not on board for this solution to the farmer s needs Vance nevertheless praised the Farmer s Alliance in correspondence to its president noting For the past six months there has been more discussion upon the condition of the farmer and matters pertaining to their interests than have taken place within ten years prior The more of this talk the better for the farmers Their wrongs are so palpable that the justice of readdressing them will become more and more irresistible as the light is turned on The policy of the farmers being right now is to keep within the right Demand nothing that is illegal ask nothing that is unreasonable 12 Vance also hinted that the sub treasury scheme could be harmful to him and that the farmers should stand by their friend 12 When the North Carolina legislature stated that their appointed Senator for the 1891 term should vote for the sub treasury scheme Vance positively and emphatically declined to agree to be elected under such constraints 12 Rather than give up Vance the legislature reworded their instructions to request that Vance use all honorable means to secure financial reforms 12 Yet Vance was loath to accept any such conditions 12 In a letter written to a member of the legislature on April 1 1897 Thomas J Jarvis said There is no power on earth that could induce Vance to have accepted an office under conditions which he felt could be justly held to forfeit the affection and high esteem in which he is held to the people of his State 12 Vance who was dealing with poor health at the time wrote a letter rather than speaking in public about the need for Democrats to fight the Republicans who want to limit rights given by the Constitution 12 Vance stated that the situation is most critical and cautioned against splitting the Democratic Party into two parties as this would only benefit the Republicans 12 Vance also reminds everyone Since I have been your representative in the Senate I have both spoken and voted against that unjust legislation At home as you know I never ceased to expose inequalities and to advise farmers to organize for resistance to it My unfaltering confidence is in the true farmers of North Carolina who as members of the Alliance will I trust not permit their noble order and their just cause to be perverted and debased 12 National issues edit nbsp The Administration Sawmill political cartoon by Joseph Keppler with Vance at the far left and President Cleveland at the sawmill From Puck magazine February 1886 nbsp Snowed In political cartoon by Joseph Keppler showing a snowstorm depositing silver coins at the Capitol and the Department of Treasury with Vance and others gathering coins for a snowball fight From Puck magazine January 1886 In national politics Vance generally supported conservative President Grover Cleveland 5 15 He made a speech in North Carolina saying Many of our people it is true have objected to Mr Cleveland and preferred that he should not have been nominated I confess that I was among that number But an individual preference before the nomination of a candidate is one thing and the duty of a true man after that nomination has been fairly made is another and very different thing indeed If we refuse to abide by the voice of the majority of our fellow Democrats freely and unmistakably expressed in friendly convention there is an end of all associated party effort in the government of our country if we personally participate in that convention and then refuse to abide by the decision of its tribunal then there is an end of all personal honor among all men and the confidence which is necessary to all combined efforts is forever gone 55 Vance opposed important legislation of the era such as the McKinley Tariff civil service programs the internal revenue service and the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act gaining a reputation as an opposition senator 13 1 Vance was also against capitalistic monopolies and the government purchasing railroads and telegraph lines as well as a monopoly by national banks 12 20 However he did not believe railroads or other non government entities should be allowed to own more public land than was needed for their primary function 12 Vance supported increasing the volume of currency and silver coinage at the time the amount of paper and coin money released could not exceed the gold in the treasury 12 Vance made his last speech in the Senate on September 1 1893 speaking against House Bill 1 regarding the unconditional repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act that was approved in 1890 12 Although noticeably weakened from illness Vance spoke for two hours and gave what many consider the best speech of his career 12 Early in the speech Vance simply explains When money is abundant prices are high when money is scarce the prices of all products are low Therefore he that increases the abundance of money benefits the production and enhances prices and wages and he that contracts or diminishes the amount of this money depreciates everything which is for sale including wages The effect upon the well being of mankind which would follow the destruction of one half of this currency it is impossible to accurately describe 12 Ku Klux Klan editAfter the Civil War the Ku Klux Klan KKK emerged as an organization of terror throughout the South including North Carolina 16 Modern detractors and some modern biographers claim that Vance was a member of the Ku Klux Klan 56 The first known source to connect the two is an affidavit to the Congress s Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States from Thomas A Hope of Lincoln County North Carolina 57 In his affidavit Hope states I frequently heard it talked among the KKK members that Z B Vance was the chief of the State do not know this of my own knowledge have only heard it talked of 57 In her 1924 self published book Authentic History Ku Klux Klan 1865 1877 Susan Lawrence Davis states that Vance was the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan for North Carolina 45 Davis had a history of fakery and appears to have plagiarized a 1906 historical romance novel by Thomas Dixon Jr when writing her nonfiction Klan history 58 45 Modern experts note other discrepancies in Authentic History including fabricated descriptions of Klan costumes giving reason to question any claims she made about Vance 58 However Davis s report of Vance s association with the Klan is repeated in many credible books in the 20th century such as historian Stanly Fitzgerald Horn s Invisible Empire The Story of the Ku Klux Klan 1866 187 59 Horne writes Ex Governor Zebulon Baird Vance was generally supposed to be the Grand Dragon of the Realm and the testimony of the confessed Ku Klux was to the effect that within the Klan Vance was generally looked upon as the chief of state 59 In the 2004 biography Zeb Vance North Carolina s Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader Gordon McKinney writes that Vance did publicly discuss the KKK in 1870 after a series of Ku Klux Klan incidents in Orange County North Carolina 60 The statement issued by Vance reads I opposed the Ku Klux from the start refusing to have anything to do with such an organization on the grounds that it was a secret society I not only refused to approve of it but made a speech in a certain county against such organizations 60 Similarly in a review of Vance s writings of the era historian Milton Ready notes Vance embraced the racial stereotypes of the time that deemed newly freed blacks inferior Yet he loathed the Reconstruction era Ku Klux Klan condemning its members as cowards and ruffians its intimidating methods as unlawful 3 Regardless of what Vance was writing or saying historian Joe T Mobley says it is important to consider Vance s acquiescence to the violence of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction 61 Vance also capitalized on the tension created by the Klan in the mountain region to help the Conservatives sweep the western counties 16 Personal life edit nbsp Harriett Espy Vance 1878 nbsp Florence Steele Martin Vance nbsp Gombroom Black Mountain North Carolina in the 19th centuryAround 1851 Vance began to court Harriette Hattie Newell Espy the orphaned daughter of Presbyterian minister Robert Espy 26 4 After he had passed the Bar and started a law practice Vance married Harriette at Quaker Meadows the home of her uncle Charles McDowell in Burke County North Carolina on August 3 1853 62 4 They had five sons Robert Espy Vance born 1854 died young Charles Noel Vance born 1856 David Mitchell Vance born 1857 Zebulon Baird Vance Jr born 1860 and Thomas Malvern Vance born 1862 13 16 The family lived on a 5 acres 20 000 m2 lot in Asheville North Carolina purchased for 2 300 which came from Hattie s dowry 4 Vance enslaved six people Isaac Julia Hannah Marion and two unnamed children who cleaned the house cooked maintained the garden did laundry and helped rear the Vance children 16 Vance joined the Mt Hermon Lodge No 118 Ancient Free and Accepted Masons in Asheville reaching the degree of Master Mason on June 20 1853 63 When he moved to Charlotte after the Civil War Vance attended Phalanx Lodge No 31 64 That lodge quickly grew in size with Vance s membership 64 In 1867 Vance co founded the Excelsior Lodge No 261 as the second lodge in Charlotte with Samuel Wittkowsky 64 However Excelsior Lodge records show Vance as Resident Mason Not Member 64 Vance was also one of the nineteen original stakeholders in the Asheville Cemetery Company which purchased land and hired landscape architect Charles T Colyer to create Riverside Cemetery 29 In return Vance received twenty grave plots and his choice of location within the cemetery 29 Vance donated to keep the University of North Carolina operating 29 In 1875 when the university reopened after the war he was asked to be its president following in the footsteps of former Governor David Lowry Swain 12 29 However Vance declined the offer 29 He said No say to my friends that it would kill me in a few weeks to be obliged to behave as is required for a college president in order to furnish an example to the boys 12 He was a member of the Southern Historical Society serving as its vice president of North Carolina around 1873 65 In February 1865 Vance had a stroke that caused temporary paralysis and the muscles of the left cheek and eye to occasionally jerk and twitch 16 In October 1878 the Vances moved into a residence on Fayetteville Street in Raleigh the former home of Kemp P Battle 66 Vance joined the church for the first time at the age of 48 choosing his wife s Presbyterian church 67 However his wife Harriette died on November 3 1878 after a long and painful illness just one month after the death of Vance s mother 13 12 A train took Harriette s remains back to Asheville to be buried at Riverside Cemetery 12 29 On January 21 1880 Vance met Florence Steele Martin while attending a ball at the Riggs House hotel in Washington D C 68 Martin was a wealthy Catholic widow from Louisville Kentucky with a twelve year old son 16 26 When she returned home three weeks later the two were engaged 68 Based on the more than 100 letters Vance sent her over the next four months this was a love match 68 Vance told a friend that Mrs Martin was perfect for him except for her religion 26 He wrote Think of it What will my Presbyterian friends say to me 26 In reality there were legitimate concerns that her religion could negatively impact his political career but Vance was not deterred 68 They married on June 17 1880 some six months after meeting in Oldham County Kentucky at the home of her mother Mrs Samuel Steele 69 They did not have any children 13 The couple lived at 1627 Massachusetts Avenue in Washington D C but also started building a house called Gombroom in Black Mountain North Carolina 16 20 To fund Gombroom Vance used his wife s money and sold land in downtown Asheville that he inherited from his mother 16 Vance was embarrassed that his new wife had more money than he did 68 Weeks before their wedding he wrote her Tell them her family the simple truth about me Darling as I told it to you that I am a poor man amp ever likely to be You may boast of nothing for me except my love for you I do hope they will all learn to love me 68 Nevertheless Gombroon was completed in 1887 and became their main home when Vance s health declined 16 Surrounded by forests it was the ideal retreat in the mountains of North Carolina and had gardens orchards and vineyards along with a dairy springhouse and other outbuildings 12 In 1890 at the age of sixty Vance gave more speeches than in any other year of his life 12 His nervous affliction from his previous stroke became worse and back in Black Mountain he fell from a wagon 12 His doctors feared he would go blind if they did not surgically remove one eye to save the other 12 The surgery was performed in early 1891 but he never returned to full health 13 16 Vance told William B Bate whom he sat next to in the Senate Misfortunes have their blessings for surely no man can now deny that I have an eye single to the interests of my constituents 70 In a kindness not always seen by political opponents the entire Senate voted to pay for a private secretary for Vance from their contingency funds 12 However Vance s health continued to decline from 1890 through 1894 16 As travel was believed to be curative in the 19th century he visited Egypt England France Germany Ireland Italy and Scotland 12 Vance told his son that he was home sick while abroad and that the trip had made him a better American 12 In January 1894 he visited Jacksonville Tampa St Augustine and Suwannee Springs in Florida while the Senate was in session 12 20 When he returned to Washington D C in April 1894 he could no longer walk 16 On April 14 1894 Vance had another stroke went into a coma and died at his home in Washington D C 16 13 Services were held in the Senate chamber on April 16 1894 which were attended by President Grover Cleveland Vice President Adlai Stevenson Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Melville Fuller and all but one of the associate justices Secretary of State Walter Q Gresham Secretary of the Treasury John G Carlisle Attorney General Richard Olney Post Master General Wilson S Bissell Secretary of the Navy Hilary A Herbert Secretary of the Interior M Hoke Smith Secretary of Agriculture Julius Sterling Morton the Speaker of the House Charles Frederick Crisp and members of both the House of Representatives and Senate 12 54 The ambassador from England Sir Julian Paunceforte other members of the diplomatic corps and Bishop John J Keane of Catholic University also attended 12 54 For the service Vance s desk and chair were draped in black and the floral decorations included pine to represent North Carolina 54 The service was followed by a funeral procession to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station 12 Next a funeral train took Vance s body to Raleigh North Carolina for another service and from there to Asheville North Carolina for burial 16 6 He was accompanied by seven congressmen John S Henderson William T Crawford and Sydenham B Alexander of North Carolina John C Black of Illinois Elijah V Brookshire of Indiana Luther M Strong of Ohio and Charles Daniels of New York six senators Matt W Ransom of North Carolina James Z George of Mississippi George Gray of Delaware Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn of Kentucky Fred DuBois of Idaho and William E Chandler of New Hampshire the Secretary of the Senate William Ruffin Cox and family members 12 In Raleigh the group was joined by Governor Elias Carr former Governor Thomas Jordan Jarvis North Carolina Attorney General Frank I Osborne state North Railroad Commissioner James W Wilson North Carolina Secretary of State Octavius Coke State Treasurer Samuel McDowell Tate Auditor of North Carolina R M Furman Judge Alphonso Calhoun Avery of the North Carolina Supreme Court Richard Henry Battle who was Vance s personal secretary during his governorship former North Carolina Attorney General Thomas S Kenan The News amp Observer owner Josephus Daniels Edward J Hale of The Fayetteville Observer and many others 12 71 Thousands of people lined the railroad tracks to pay their last respects to one whom they loved and admired very much as the funeral train headed south and west and stopped at towns and cities such as Richmond Danville Greensboro Durham and Raleigh 13 16 12 Thousands passed through the railroad car to pay their respects filling it with a variety of flowers 12 Once the train arrived in Asheville there were funeral services at First Presbyterian Church 16 Surviving members of Vance s Rough and Ready Guard led a procession of 710 carriages from the church to Riverside Cemetery where nearly 10 000 mourners attended his funeral and burial including people he formerly enslaved 16 43 6 In 1890 the total population of Asheville was 10 235 citation needed In his eulogy former Governor Thomas Jordan Jarvis said He was the Mount Mitchell of all our great men and in the affections and love of the people he towered above them all As ages to come will not be able to mar the grandeur and greatness of Mount Mitchell so they will not be able to efface from the hearts and minds of the people the name of their beloved Vance 72 Vance was buried by his first wife Harriette in Riverside Cemetery in the Vance family plot 29 Later his second wife Florence had Vance moved to a grave in her family s plot in Riverside Cemetery 29 Vance s children who were all born to his first wife successfully petitioned to court to return Vance to his original burial site 29 Thus Vance was buried three times in the same cemetery 29 At the time of his death Vance had 152 07 in the bank when his effects and property were sold his estate totaled less than 5 000 68 Honors edit nbsp Vance statue by Henry Jackson Ellicott Raleigh North Carolina nbsp Vance statue by Gutzon Borglum National Statuary Hall nbsp Reconstruction of the cabin at the Zebulon B Vance Birthplace State Historic SiteIn 1953 Frontis W Johnston wrote North Carolina has loved idolized and rewarded no other man in her history as she has Zebulon Baird Vance 67 Johnston also states that North Carolina s towns swarmed with literally hundreds of little Zebulons 67 There are several monuments and memorials dedicated to Vance The Salem College Chapel contains a stained glass window given in honor of Vance by the Class of 1894 73 The Vance Monument a 75 feet 23 m granite obelisk was dedicated in Asheville North Carolina in 1897 demolished May 2021 16 74 A statue of Vance by Henry Jackson Ellicott was dedicated on the grounds of the North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh on August 22 1900 75 It was moved from its original pedestal and relocated to Raleigh s Union Square in 1949 75 A bronze statue of Vance by Gutzon Borglum was added to the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington D C in 1916 76 A small monument is located where his post war home once stood at Sixth and College Streets in Charlotte North Carolina citation needed The Asheville Lodge of the B nai B rith dedicated a memorial plaque to Vance at Calvary Episcopal Church in Fletcher North Carolina on October 14 1928 49 77 The plaque is mounted on a large granite boulder that is part of the Open Air Westminster Abbey of the South 49 78 There are many historic markers and historic sites about Vance The Vance Birthplace is a State Historic Site in Weaverville North Carolina 79 The Historic Vance House and Civil War Museum is located in Statesville North Carolina in his former residence 80 The Zeb Vance House North Carolina State Highway Historical Marker is in Statesville North Carolina 81 The Zebulon B Vance North Carolina State Highway Historical Marker is in Buncombe County North Carolina 82 The Camp Vance North Carolina State Highway Historical Marker is near Morganton North Carolina 83 The Brothers in Service Civil War Trails marker in Weaverville North Carolina is about Vance and his brother Robert 84 Several locations schools and more bear Vance s name Kerr Vance Academy in Henderson North Carolina 85 Northern Vance High School in Henderson North Carolina 85 The World War II United States liberty ship SS Zebulon B Vance 86 87 Vance Charter School in Henderson North Carolina 85 Vance County North Carolina was named in his honor in 1881 16 Vance County Early College High School in Henderson North Carolina 88 85 Vance County High School in Henderson North Carolina 88 Vance County Middle School in Henderson North Carolina 88 Vance Elementary in Asheville North Carolina name changed in February 2021 89 Vance Hall at the University of North Carolina at Asheville name changed in 2020 10 88 Vance Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 90 The town of Vanceboro in Craven County North Carolina 91 Zebulon B Vance High School in Charlotte North Carolina name changed on October 13 2020 92 Zeb Vance Elementary School in Kittrell North Carolina 93 88 Zeb Vance High School in Vance County North Carolina now closed 94 The town of Zebulon in Wake County North Carolina 95 Several organizations bear his name Vance Masonic Lodge A F amp A M No 293 in Weaverville North Carolina The Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp No 15 is called the Zebulon Baird Vance Camp 96 Vance Policy Institute think tank for Asheville and Buncombe County 97 The Zeb Vance Ruritan Club in Kittrell North Carolina 98 The Henderson North Carolina chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy is the Zeb Vance Chapter 99 The United Confederate Veterans Camp No 681 was called the Zebulon Vance Camp in his honor 100 Vance County Schools in Henderson North Carolina 88 Also on January 19 1895 the United States Senate opened its floor for orations in his honor 12 Legacy editAbout Vance F Lane Williamson wrote Did he moderate his racial views in later years Perhaps but who knows It s fair to say though that his legacy is that he set the stage for North Carolina to be perceived as at least somewhat more racially tolerant and culturally progressive than its Deep South neighbors a tradition that held through the 20th century and beyond until quite recently 101 Samuel Wittkowsky a Jewish intimate of Vance wrote I speak for my race in North Carolina the deceased has even by his words and writings demonstrated that he was their friend His lecture on the Scattered Nation will ever remain green in the memory of my race and will be one of the brightest jewels in his ever liberal fair and untarnished escutcheon And I venture the assertion that in the history of North Carolina no Israelite has cast a vote against Z B Vance 26 Annually on Vance s birthday for more than 75 years the Jewish organization B nai B rith and the United Daughters of the Confederacy held a joint ceremony and laid a galax wreath at the Vance Monument in Asheville 26 This event began in the late 1930s was discontinued in the early 2000s 48 49 In 2004 author Sharyn McCrumb wrote the novel Ghost Riders with a fictionalized account of Vance s life told in the first person 102 She was also inspired to write The Ballad of Tom Dula because of Vance saying Despite his family s hard times after the early death of his father Zeb Vance managed to get an education read law and get himself elected governor by the age of thirty I thought that Vance could counteract the negative Appalachian stereotypes 103 Always a controversial political figure Vance became even more of an issue in the early 21st century because of his connection to slavery and his history of racism 10 92 104 In September 2017 the University of North Carolina at Asheville s Department of History and the Zebulon B Vance Birthplace State Historic Site held a two day symposium Zebulon B Vance Reconsidered 105 Kimberly Floyd site manager of the Vance Birthplace and symposium co convener said Zebulon Vance was a prominent figure in our state for four decades and his is the story of both a hero and scoundrel In August 2020 the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina at Asheville voted to rename Vance Hall because Vance maintained racist stances that do not align with UNC Asheville s core values 10 In October 2020 the Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education voted to remove his name from its high school 92 In 2021 the City of Asheville and Buncombe County both voted to remove the Vance Monument from Pack Square in downtown Asheville 104 Also in 2021 Asheville City Schools changed the name of its Vance Elementary School 89 See also editList of United States Congress members who died in office 1790 1899 List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protestsReferences edit a b Zebulon B Vance Britannica Retrieved April 10 2022 a b c d e f g Vance Zebulon Baird 1830 1894 Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Retrieved April 9 2022 a b Ready Milton June 25 2015 When past is present Zeb Vance and his monument Mountain Xpress Retrieved February 21 2022 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Tucker Glenn 1966 Zeb Vance Champion of Personal Freedom Indianapolis Bobbs Merrill via Internet Archive a b c Leonard C Schlup and James Gilbert Ryan eds Historical Dictionary of the Gilded Age 2003 p 511 a b c d e f Elliston Jon January 19 2005 Zeb Vance No Simple Man Mountain Xpress Retrieved April 10 2022 Weil Julie Zauzmer Blanco Adrian Dominguez Leo January 10 2022 More than 1 700 congressmen once enslaved Black people This is who they were and how they shaped the nation The Washington Post Retrieved January 29 2022 Congress slaveowners The Washington Post January 27 2022 retrieved January 29 2022 Swofford Stan January 21 2005 UNC CH Confronts Its Past IN Bell Dispute Family Defends Ancestor After Racism Charges Arise Greensboro News and Record Retrieved May 12 2023 a b c d UNC Asheville Board of Trustees Passes Resolution to Rename Vance and Hoey Halls Calls for Task Force to Study and Review Names of All Campus Buildings News And Events UNC Asheville August 28 2020 Retrieved April 10 2022 Vance Birthplace official website Archived December 9 2003 at the Wayback Machine North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Retrieved on April 3 2012 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bj bk bl bm bn bo bp bq br bs bt bu bv bw bx by bz ca cb cc cd ce cf cg ch ci Dowd Clement 1897 Life of Zebulon B Vance Charleston South Carolina Observer Printing and Publishing House Retrieved April 10 2022 via Hathi Trust a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al Barrett John G 1996 Vance Zebulon Baird NCpedia Retrieved April 9 2022 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x McKinney Gordon B Zeb Vance and the Construction of the Western North Carolina Railroad Appalachian Journal 29 no 1 2 2001 58 67 JSTOR 40934142 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Zebulon Baird Vance eNCyclopedia The State Library of North Carolina Archived from the original on July 5 2006 Retrieved April 9 2022 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba Zebulon Vance North Carolina Historic Sites Retrieved February 21 2022 a b c d e f g h i j Fowler R H 1998 Mouth of the South Civil War Times Illustrated 37 3 46 via EBSCO Accessed April 10 2022 a b Catalogue of the Members of the Dialectic Society Instituted in the University of North Carolina June 3 1795 Together with Historical Sketches 1890 Documenting the American South Retrieved April 10 2022 Zebulon Baird Vance UNC 1851 Phi Gamma Delta Digital Repository phigamarchives org Retrieved April 10 2022 a b c d e f Death of Senator Vance PDF The New York Times April 15 1894 p 5 Retrieved April 13 2022 a b Asheville Spectator The Spirit of the Age Raleigh North Carolina March 21 1855 p 3 Retrieved April 11 2022 via Newspapers com Asheville Spectator Asheville N C 1853 1858 Library of Congress Retrieved April 11 2022 Representative Men of the South Philadelphia C Robson amp Company 1880 p 293 via Google Books April 11 2022 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Yates Richard E Zebulon B Vance as War Governor of North Carolina 1862 1865 Journal of Southern History 1937 vol 3 no 1 pp 43 75 Calder Thomas June 16 2020 Asheville Archives Zebulon Vance argues in favor of slavery 1860 Mountain Xpress Retrieved February 21 2022 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Adler Selig Zebulon B Vance and the Scattered Nation Journal of Southern History 1941 7 3 pp 357 377 via JSTOR Accessed April 9 2022 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Gerard Philip June 28 2011 Unflinching Leader Our State Retrieved April 10 2022 a b Faulkner Ronnie W Conservative Party NCPedia North Carolina Government amp Heritage Library at the State Library of North Carolina Retrieved November 13 2020 a b c d e f g h i j k l Darty J D July 15 2015 Five Things You Probably Didn t Know About Zebulon Vance Historic Riverside Cemetery Retrieved April 10 2022 Dykman Wilma July 9 1961 North Carolina Salutes a Native Son PDF The New York Times p 299 Retrieved April 13 2022 Rasmussen Steve May 7 2003 Asheville s monument to tolerance Mountain Xpress Retrieved February 23 2022 a b President s Message On Legacy Buildings Mecklenburg County Bar April 2017 Retrieved February 23 2022 a b c Current Richard Nelson 1992 Lincoln s Loyalists Union soldiers from the Confederacy Lawrenceville New Jersey Princeton University Press p 122 ISBN 978 1 55553 124 9 Mobley Joe A 2000 Zebulon B Vance A Confederate Nationalist in the North Carolina Gubernatorial Election of 1864 The North Carolina Historical Review 77 4 434 454 ISSN 0029 2494 JSTOR 23522169 a b c d e f g h i j McKinney Gordon B Zebulon Vance and His Reconstruction of the Civil War in North Carolina The North Carolina Historical Review 75 no 1 1998 69 85 via JSTOR April 10 2022 Gerard Philip April 7 2015 One Nation Again After Johnston s Surrender Our State Retrieved April 10 2022 From North Carolina PDF The New York Times May 9 1865 p 1 Retrieved April 13 2022 Briggs Benjamin June 9 2017 10 Ways Blandwood is NC s Historic Center Preservation Greensboro Incorporated Retrieved April 13 2022 a b Hardy Michael C May 5 2015 Statesville The Last North Carolina State Capital During the War Looking for the Confederate War Retrieved July 29 2022 a b McNally Jim April 11 2019 Museum holding Civil War Living History Day Statesville Record amp Landmark Presidential Proclamation No 38 May 29 1865 13 Stat 760 a b c d e Vance Zebulon Encyclopedia com www encyclopedia com Cengage Retrieved April 10 2022 a b c Barrett John G Zebulon Baird Vance 13 May 1830 14 Apr 1894 Dictionary of North Carolina Biography Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press 1979 ISBN 9780807818060 via Documenting the American South Retrieved on April 3 2012 West John Foster April 2002 The Ballad of Tom Dula The Documented Story Behind the Murder of Laura Foster Parkway Publishers ISBN 1 887905 55 3 a b c d e Davis Susan Lawrence 1924 Authentic History of the Ku Klux Klan 1865 1877 New York New York Susan Lawrence Davis p 292 a b The Rebel Pow Wow in Raleigh The Daily Standard February 7 1868 p 2 Retrieved December 9 2022 via Newspapers com a b North Carolina Conservative Convention The Wilmington Morning Star February 8 1868 p 1 Retrieved December 9 2022 via Newspapers com a b c d Andrea Cooper April 6 2021 Monument to Confederate governor who loved Jews is coming down in Asheville NC The Times of Israel Retrieved April 10 2022 a b c d Epstein Seth 2019 From Objects to Agents of Tolerance Jews and Tolerance Talk in Asheville North Carolina 1894 1954 North Carolina Historical Review 96 3 305 40 via EBSCO Accessed April 12 2022 North Carolina Gov Roy Cooper state officials sworn in during inauguration ceremony WXII12 Hearst Television Inc January 9 2021 Retrieved January 31 2023 Walton Beth March 13 2015 For some Vance legacy as slaveowner clouds monument Asheville Citizen Times pp A4 Retrieved August 7 2022 a b State Colored Normal School now Fayetteville State University The Carolina Story A Virtual Museum of University History University of North Carolina Retrieved April 10 2022 Osment Timothy N 2008 Zebulon Vance Digital Heritage Western Carolina University Retrieved April 13 2022 a b c d Solemn Scene in the Senate PDF The New York Times April 17 1894 p 2 Retrieved April 13 2022 Battle George Gordon September 28 1928 A War Governor s View PDF The New York Times p 20 Retrieved April 13 2022 Burgess Joel Asheville Confederate Vance Monument to be replaced by George Floyd hologram Task force appointed The Asheville Citizen Times Retrieved August 7 2022 a b United States Congress Poland Luke P Scott John 1872 Report of the Joint select committee appointed to inquire into the condition of affairs in the late insurrectionary states so far as regards the execution of laws and the safety of the lives and property of the citizens of the United States and Testimony taken Vol 2 Washington District of Columbia Government Printing Office p 400 a b Kuhner Wilhelm January 16 2021 Susan Lawrence Davis s authentic history of the Reconstruction Klan Kuhner Kommentar an Amerika Retrieved February 22 2022 a b Horn Stanley Fitzgerald 1939 Invisible Empire The Story of the Ku Klux Klan 1866 1871 Houghton Mifflin p 1939 ISBN 9781404749108 via Google Books a b McKinney Gordan 2004 Zeb Vance North Carolina s Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader Chapel Hill NC The University of North Carolina Press pp 287 288 ISBN 978 1 4696 0731 3 Mobley J A 2005 Review of Zeb Vance North Carolina s Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leaderr by G B McKinney The North Carolina Historical Review 82 1 93 Survey and Planning Unit August 1973 Quaker Meadows PDF National Register of Historic Places Nomination and Inventory North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office Retrieved August 1 2014 Masonic Apron of Zebulon Baird Vance Greensboro Mason Museum Retrieved April 11 2022 a b c d Excelsior Masonic Lodge Charlotte NC Freemasonry Excelsior Lodge 261 Retrieved April 11 2022 Southern Historical Society Papers Volume 18 The Southern Historical Society its origin and history www perseus tufts edu Retrieved August 28 2022 Gov Zebulon B Vance s New Home PDF The New York Times October 28 1878 p 4 Retrieved April 13 2022 a b c Johnston Frontis W Zebulon Baird Vance A Personality Sketch The North Carolina Historical Review 30 no 2 1953 178 90 via JSTOR JSTOR 23516187 a b c d e f g Johnston Frontis W The Courtship of Zeb Vance The North Carolina Historical Review 31 no 2 1954 222 39 via JSTOR April 12 2022 JSTOR 23516704 Senator Vance Married PDF The New York Times June 18 1880 p 1 Retrieved April 13 2022 Zebulon B Vance s Pluck PDF The New York Times January 26 1895 p 6 Retrieved April 13 2022 Mitchell Memory F 1979 Battle Richard Henry NCpedia Retrieved April 13 2022 United States Congress 1895 Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Zebulon Baird Vance late a Senator from North Carolina Delivered in the Senate and House of Representatives Fifty third Congress Third Session U S Government Printing Office p 86 Rettig Polly M June 15 1976 Old Salem Historic District National Historic Landmark Nomination PDF NC gov p 54 Retrieved April 9 2022 Group files appeal after lawsuit to block Vance Monument s removal dismissed by judge WMYA May 18 2021 Retrieved April 10 2022 a b Zebulon Vance Statue Raleigh Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina DocSouth University of North Carolina March 19 2010 Retrieved April 13 2022 Zebulon Vance Statue U S Capitol for North Carolina AOC Architect of the Capital Retrieved April 10 2022 Rabbi Wise Eulogizes Zebulon Baird Vance PDF The New York Times p 23 Retrieved April 13 2022 Open Air Westminster of the South Calvary Episcopal Church Fletcher Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina DocSouth University of North Carolina March 19 2010 Retrieved April 13 2022 Vance Birthplace NC Historic Sites historicsites nc gov Retrieved August 7 2022 Vance House Marker 25 NC Markers Archived from the original on February 15 2019 Retrieved February 14 2019 Marker M 25 Vance House North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Retrieved April 9 2022 Marker P 2 Zebulon B Vance North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Retrieved April 9 2022 Marker N 17 Camp Vance North Carolina Markers North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Retrieved August 7 2022 Marker Brothers in service Zebulon and Robert Vance birthplace North Carolina Digital Collections North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Retrieved April 13 2022 a b c d Holmes C Scott O Rouke Owens Amelia 2022 Trespassing on White Supremacy The Legacy of Establishment White Supremacy in North Carolina PDF North Carolina Law Review 100 165 See footnote 103 Warren Harry 2006 Zebulon B Vance USS NCpedia Retrieved December 27 2017 North Carolina Yard to Launch Freighter PDF The New York Times November 23 1941 p 54 Retrieved April 13 2022 a b c d e f A census of Confederate symbols and monuments in the U S Knoxville News Sentinel Retrieved May 12 2023 a b Asheville City Schools Renames Vance Elementary Blueridge Public Radio February 2 2021 Retrieved April 11 2022 Zebulon B Vance 1830 1894 and Vance Hall Names Across the Landscape Carolina Story Virtual Museum of University History University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Retrieved April 10 2022 About Our Town Town of Vanceboro Retrieved April 9 2022 a b c Vance High School renamed for Julius L Chambers Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools Retrieved April 9 2022 Zeb Vance Elementary U S News amp World Report Retrieved April 9 2022 Leatherberry Earl June 1 1995 North Carolina Vance County Zeb Vance School 974 published June 1995 retrieved April 11 2022 History of Zebulon Zebulon Chamber of Commerce Retrieved April 9 2022 Sons of Confederate Veterans 0015 Zebulon Baird Vance Camp Cause IQ Retrieved April 12 2022 Millard Hal L December 4 2007 What the world needs now is another think tank Mountain Xpress Zeb Vance Ruritan Club Presents Dictionaries Over School Broadcast The Dictionary Project September 30 2015 Retrieved April 13 2022 Minutes of the 7th Annual Meeting of the United Daughters of the Confederacy Nashville Press of Foster amp Webb 1901 p 87 Via Google Books Accessed April 13 2022 Sons of Veterans Invited The Asheville Weekly Citizen December 29 1896 p 4 Retrieved April 14 2022 via Newspapers com President s Message On Legacy Buildings Mecklenburg County Bar April 2017 Retrieved February 23 2022 Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb Publishers Weekly July 2004 Retrieved August 7 2022 The Ballad of Tom Dooley by Sharyn McCrumb www sharynmccrumb com Retrieved April 13 2022 a b Burgess Joel City vote advances removal of Asheville Confederate governor s monument The Asheville Citizen Times Retrieved April 10 2022 Zebulon B Vance Reconsidered The Urban News September 13 2017 Retrieved April 13 2022 External links editWorks by or about Zebulon Vance at Internet Archive Online Books by Zebulon Baird VanceParty political officesPreceded byAugustus Summerfield Merrimon Democratic nominee for Governor of North Carolina1876 Succeeded byThomas Jordan JarvisU S House of RepresentativesPreceded byThomas L Clingman Member of the U S House of Representatives from North Carolina s 8th congressional district1858 1861 Succeeded byCivil WarPolitical officesPreceded byHenry Clark Governor of North Carolina1862 1865 Succeeded byWilliam HoldenPreceded byCurtis Brogden Governor of North Carolina1877 1879 Succeeded byThomas JarvisU S SenatePreceded byAugustus Merrimon U S senator Class 3 from North Carolina1879 1894 Served alongside Matt Ransom Succeeded byThomas Jarvis Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Zebulon Vance amp oldid 1198716343, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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