Burnsville

Burnsville exemplified western North Carolinians’ divided loyalties. Yancey County was evenly split on the secession issue. In January 1861, secession advocates in the town square burned an effigy of Cong. Zebulon B. Vance, who advised caution in response to Lincoln’s election. The future governor’s defenders vowed to tar and feather those responsible. Once the state seceded, many men enlisted in local Confederate companies, such as the Black Mountain Boys, while a few others joined the Federal units. The mountains soon became a haven for deserters from both sides., In September 1863, Gov. Vance appointed John W. McElroy commander of the western “home guard” brigade to keep the peace and enforce Confederate conscription. McElroy already had told Vance that “many will go to the mountains before they will go to war.” McElroy moved his headquarters from this house to Madison County in September 1863. On April 9, 1864, in McElroy’s absence, about 50 Yancey County women “assembled… and marched in a body to a store-house… and (carried off) about sixty bushels of Government wheat.” The next day, McElroy reported, a band of 75 local renegades under Montraville Ray “came into Burnsville… surprised the guard, broke open the magazine, and took all the arms and ammunition. …The county is gone up.” Col. John B. Palmer soon marched 250 Confederate infantrymen here and attacked Ray’s force, capturing 15 and destroying the Ray family property. McElroy soon reestablished his headquarters here. In one of the last local acts of violence of the war, in April 1865, near here, Unionists shot and killed the Rev. Sam Byrd, whose son was a captain in McElroy’s home guard., (sidebar) , John W. McElroy constructed this house about 1845, after he bought two lots here. He lived here until late in the 1850s but used the dwelling during the war. According to local tradition, after the April 1864 engagement in Burnsville, the house served as a hospital., (captions) , (lower left) Gen. John W. McElroy; Montraville Ray. , (upper right) The Yancey County Courthouse, photographed ca. 1890, stood in the town square. It was constructed ca. 1850 and demolished in 1909. Photos courtesy Yancey History Association