Durham is where Civil War in North Carolina ended

From Orange County, U.S. Route 70 winds in an easterly direction into Durham County to merge into an “urban maze of highways and superhighways.” Motorists who want to “take it easy” can follow the “U.S. 70 Business” signs. 

A key historic site is Bennett Place in Durham, an old farmhouse that “became the location of the largest surrender of Confederate soldiers in the Civil War.”

 

It is here that Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and Confederate Gen. Joseph Eggleston Johnston peacefully hammered out the terms of surrender. 

The Confederate soldiers formally laid down their arms on April 26, 1865, ending the war for 89,270 Rebel troops who were still fighting in four states – North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

 

The agreement was patterned after the document signed by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, who surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Va., on April 9, 1865. (This ended the fighting for 28,356 Confederate soldiers who were aligned with Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.) 

James and Nancy Bennett farmed 325 acres, growing corn, wheat, oats and potatoes while raising hogs. James was also a tailor and a cobbler, while selling horse feed, tobacco plugs and distilled liquor on the side. 

Although the Bennetts were not slave owners, their two sons, Lorenzo and Alphonzo, enlisted as Confederate soldiers and died during the war. 

In 1921, a fire destroyed the old Bennett farmhouse and kitchen; only the stone chimney survived. The Civil War Centennial (1961-65) provided a revival of interest in Bennett Place, and a park was officially designated as a North Carolina Historic Site in 1962. 

A structure, about the same size and age as the original Bennett house, was discovered nearby and moved to the site for restoration. A modern visitor center with exhibits had been added.

 

Nearby is Duke Forest, owned by Duke University. A swath of the woodlands was set aside in 1966 to establish the Duke Lemur Center. 

It is an internationally acclaimed research facility/living laboratory housing about 250 lemurs across 14 species – the most diverse population of lemurs on Earth, outside their native Madagascar.

 

Lemurs are the most threatened group of mammals on the planet and are at risk of extinction, the Duke researchers say. “Our mission is to learn everything we can about lemurs – because the more we learn, the better we can work to save them.” 

“They are endemic only to Madagascar; once lemurs are gone from Madagascar, they are gone from the wild.” 

(Visitors can make reservations online at lemur.duke.edu to tour the facility. Admission fees apply.)

 

Russell McLendon, a science writer for Treehugger.com, said: “Lemurs are easy to love. They’re cute, charismatic and oddly humanlike, which isn’t just a coincidence. Lemurs are primates like us, and while they’re not as closely related to people as chimpanzees and other apes are, they’re ‘still family.’” 

“Lemurs face an array of dangers across Madagascar,” McLendon said. “Some people hunt them, but the single greatest threat to lemurs is the same thing causing most wildlife declines around the world: habitat loss, driven by everything from logging and agriculture to climate change.” 

Dr. Robin Ann Smith of Duke University observed: “Males rule in most of the animal world. But when it comes to conventional gender roles, lemurs – distant primate cousins of ours – buck the trend.”

 

“It’s not uncommon for lady lemurs to bite their mates, snatch a piece of fruit from their hands, whack them in the head or shove them out of prime sleeping spots,” Dr. Smith said.