Civil War Sites

Halifax County, NC is home to many sites of great significance to the Civil War. In Weldon you can visit a mass grave, located just off the Roanoke Canal Trail, where approximately 164 Confederate soldiers who died at Wayside Hospital #9, a small, wooden Methodist chapel that was outfitted as a hospital from 1861-2, were buried.

There is a large stone marker on site, purchased by the Roanoke Rapids Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy listing the soldiers' names. The cemetery is surrounded by breastworks built to protect Weldon and the four major railroad lines that ran through the town.

One of these was the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, the longest railroad in the world at that time and also known as the Lifelife of the Confederacy. You can still see the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad trestle over the Roanoke River, which is a site on the North Carolina Civil War Trail. These railroads, the Wilmington and Weldon, the Raleigh and Gaston, the Seaboard and Roanoke and the Petersburg Railroad were the main arteries for the transportation of both troops and provisions from the South to Richmond and the Army of Northern Virginia.

Also on the Roanoke Canal Trail, visit the stone aqueduct of the former Roanoke Navigation Canal, an archway of hand-hewn stones spanning 35-feet that carried the canal waters over Chockoyotte Creek and was defended during the Civil War. The canal was used to transport goods to be loaded onto the railroads. There is another NC Civil War Trail marker located beside the locks at the Roanoke Canal Museum in Roanoke Rapids that explains the Roanoke Canal's significance.

In Southeastern Halifax County in the town of Scotland Neck, you will find the site along the Roanoke River where the CSS Ram Albermarle was constructed. Farther upriver in the Town of Halifax, another NC Civil War Trails marker stands beside the Roanoke River in the area in which the Albemarle was outfitted.