Civil War symposium set
By Staff Reports
Published in News on August 24, 2010 2:35 PM
A five-week symposium on Wayne County in the Civil War will begin in early September and run through early October.
The Foundation of Wayne Community College and the college's Arts and Humanities program are sponsoring the series, with local experts lecturing on several topics: Wayne County before the war, Wayne men in the Confed-erate Army, the Battle of Goldsborough Bridge, the federal occupation of Wayne County and a roundtable discussion on the role the war continues to play in the county's life today.
Dr. Roy Heidicker will moderate each session, which will be Thursdays at 7 p.m. in Room 101 of the Walnut Building.
Dr. Bryson Bateman will deliver the first lecture on Sept. 9. He will discuss ante-bellum Wayne.
The second session, on Sept. 16, will feature Jeff Bockert talking about the men from Wayne who served in the Confederate army.
Randy Sauls will talk about the Union attack on the railroad bridge south of Goldsboro at the Sept. 23 event.
On Sept. 30, Kirk Keller will discuss the eventual federal occupation of Wayne following the battle of Bentonville late in the war.
The symposium will end with a discussion of how the war still affects the county. Wayne economic leaders have long pushed to bring the county's history to the public's consciousness and link sites such as the bridge battle and the Battle of Whitehall with other Civil War sites in the state to attract tourists. Efforts have been made in recent years to develop the bridge battle site.