Attmore-Oliver House

Attmore-Oliver House. Under the Stars and Bars. , Like many other North Carolinians, New Bern’s residents enjoyed close economic and family ties with the North and were reluctant to leave the Union. Once the war began, however, many North Carolinians passionately supported the Confederate cause: 125,000 bore arms for the Confederacy and 40,000 died. No other Southern state provided as many fighting men or suffered as many deaths., The men who lived here in the Attmore-Oliver House, which Hannah Attmore Oliver inherited just before the war, joined other residents under the “Stars and Bars.” William Oliver, Hannah’s husband, served as a Confederate quartermaster. Her three brothers also enlisted in the Confederate army. The oldest, Sitgreaves, of the Washington Grays, was captured with his battery at the Battle of Fort Fisher in 1865, and died of chronic dysentery on May 22. Isaac Attmore, of the Beaufort Rifles, fought in many major battles, including Gettysburg, and was killed at Spotsylvania Court House on May 12, 1864. George, the youngest at 13 when the war began, served in Manly’s Battery at Gettysburg, Spotsylvania Court House, The Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. He was at Appomattox Court House when Gen. Robert E. Lee capitulated, but his company left for North Carolina without surrendering. Attmore was pardoned at Greensboro on May 9, 1865, and returned to New Bern., The New Bern Historical Society’s Attmore-Oliver House Museum contains a collection of Civil War artifacts assembled by the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. For many years, one of Hannah Oliver’s daughters, Mary Oliver, was chapter president.