John Wright Stanly House
Posted by: 
showbizkid
N 35° 06.434 W 077° 02.666
18S E 313672 N 3886847
The John Wright Stanly home in New Bern is sometimes called "A House Divided" since two prominent Civil War figures who fought on opposite sides of the conflict were both born here. This house served as military headquarters for Union troops and a military hospital during the Civil War.
Waymark Code: WMGF6
Location: North Carolina, United States
Date Posted: 07/05/2006
Views: 56
This house was the birthplace of two men who fought on opposing sides during the Civil War: Edward Stanly, the Unionist military governor of North Carolina, and Confederate Gen. Lewis Addison Armistead, who was mortally wounded during the Battle of Gettysburg.
Stanly, born here in 1810, accepted the post of military governor from President Abraham Lincoln in May 1862 in the hope that he might lead his hometown and state back into the Union. He was unsuccessful and resigned in March 1863.
Armistead, Stanly's nephew, was born here in 1817. He fell at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, during Gen. James Longstreet's attack on the Federal position atop Cemetery Ridge ("Pickett's Charge") and died two days later.
After Union forces defeated Confederate troops in the Battle of New Bern on March 14, 1862, this house was selected as the headquarters of Union commander Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside. Later in the war, the house served as headquarters for Stanly General Hospital (later called Foster General Hospital) and as a convent for the Sister of Mercy, Roman Catholic nuns who worked as nurses in the hospital.
John Wright Stanly built this house between 1779 and 1783. During the Civil War, it stood on its original site at the southwest corner of New and Middle Streets (current site of a 1930's Federal building and parking lot). The house was moved in 1932 and moved again to this site in 1966.
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