1855-1879
Slavery ended, but freedoms elusive
If you had lived through this 25-year period, you could look back at the end of the 1870s and still have trouble believing everything that had happened in the life of the county and of the country. This is just a sampling of what you would have seen, from this historical rearview perspective:
Politics of the late 1870s seemed to be back in control of the old white power structure, so maybe nothing had changed. But would you have believed that, for a time, blacks had served as county commissioners and town aldermen and that in 1868 Cumberland County had sent two black men, John S. Leary and Isham Sweat, to serve in the General Assembly?
This Civil War-era rifle was made at the Fayetteville Arsenal.
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You could see progress in education for whites and blacks. You could learn of something called the State Colored Normal School for black students, which had begun in 1867 as the Howard School.
Yes, slavery was gone, once and for all. But had freedom been achieved? Restrictions were still in place - and something called the Ku Klux Klan had risen in parts of the South - so that this essential question would be argued and fought over for the next century.
The federal arsenal in Haymount was gone, its remaining sandstone blocks scattered for use in Fayetteville houses and gardens. Who were those blue-clad troops who had destroyed it with such a vengeance in 1865? And, looking back further, who were those gray-clad men who had taken over its gun-making operations after the U.S. flag was lowered in 1861?
A Civil War? What had happened, indeed?
You couldn't look back at The Fayetteville Observer for reference: The newspaper had been destroyed by the army of Gen. William T. Sherman, along with the arsenal, and would not resume publication until 1883.
By the late 1870s, factories were operating, railroads were running and downtown stores were hawking their goods.
Federal Reconstruction was technically over. But the local rebuilding, in many ways, was just beginning.
The Fayetteville Arsenal
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