Flight of Jefferson Davis

The Piedmont Railroad, chartered in 1862, linked Danville, Virginia, with Greensboro, North Carolina. Work began on the road that autumn in Danville, but wartime labor and supply shortages impeded progress on the 48-mile-long line, which did not extend here to Reidsville until late in 1863. Passenger service between the two towns began on December 21, and the railroad was completed to Greensboro in May 1864. For the remainder of the war it was a vital supply line from North Carolina to Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.

In 1865, the community here consisted of a few houses and a store containing a post office established in 1829 by future governor David S. Reid. By the 1850s, Joseph Holderby and his son-in-law William Lindsey owned much of the property here. Holderby laid out a town that he named Reidsville after he learned of the planned railroad; he sold a few lots, but the town did not prosper. Reidsville did become the county collection point for Confederate taxes, however, and Holderby served as collector for tax district 35.

It was along this route on the morning of April 11, 1865, that the train carrying Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet rolled from Danville to Greensboro after Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, two days earlier. The present Norfolk Southern Railway follows the historic route of the Piedmont Railroad. Reidsville grew quickly after the war and was incorporated in 1873. A Confederate monument was erected several blocks northwest of here in 1910.

( Sidebar : )
After passing through Reidsville, Jefferson Davis and his dwindling entourage continued through North and South Carolina to Georgia, where U.S. cavalry captured him near Irwinsville on May 10, 1865. Davis was incarcerated at Fort Monroe, Virginia, until his release on May 13, 1867.

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Show me all markers in:  Reidsville, NC  |  Rockingham County  |  27320  |  North Carolina  |  United States of America

Governor Reid House
First Baptist Church
Saint Paul United Methodist Church
Booker T. Washington High School
Alfred M. Scales
Wright Tavern
Wentworth and the War
Wentworth Methodist Church
Wentworth Methodist Church
Lower Saura Town

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