Why so many places named for an enemy general?

By D. G. Martin
Posted Thursday, May 10, 2007

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Chapel Hill, NC - What foreign general who fought in North Carolina is most memorialized here?

My first guess would be General Lafayette, the young Frenchman who helped win the Revolutionary War and gave his name to Fayetteville.

But General Lafayette never fought in North Carolina.

Maybe you would guess General Sherman, a “foreign general” when his United States troops fought in North Carolina at the end of the Civil War.

But you would have a hard time finding memorials to him. There are no cities or big roads named after him. Surely, Sherman’s campaign of burning and destruction is part of the state’s collective memory. Some people can still tell you exactly what Sherman’s troops did to their family’s farm.

Actually, we got off light. Sherman was much kinder to North Carolina than he had been to Georgia and South Carolina. Unlike the burnings that took place in Atlanta and Columbia, Raleigh was essentially undamaged by the war. When it came time to accept the surrender of Confederate troops, Sherman was inclined to be even more generous that General Grant had been at Appomattox. His proposed terms were so generous that the authorities in Washington disapproved them and ordered him to follow the Appomattox model.

Here is my nominee for the most memorialized foreign general: Lord Cornwallis, the British general whose troops invaded North Carolina in 1780, who occupied Charlotte, fought a critical battle at Guilford Court House, and then marched to Wilmington to lick his wounds and prepare for the march to Yorktown where he was forced to surrender in 1781.

Cornwallis traveled across more of North Carolina than many of us who have lived in the state for years. His memorials are the little markers that he left in many of the places he stopped.

On a recent visit to Bethania near Winston Salem, I had supper with Michelle and Michael Leonard, whose restored house once hosted General Cornwallis while he was preparing for the Battle of Guilford Court House. In Wilmington, the house General Cornwallis used as his headquarters in April of 1781 is officially known as the Burgwin-Wright Museum House, but it is more often called the Cornwallis House.

In Charlotte, when folks explain where their “Hornets’ Nest” nickname came from, they proudly tell you that General Cornwallis used the term to describe the locals’ resistance to his occupation.

In Hillsborough, they remember Cornwallis’s brief occupation in their town’s histories, and there is an important residential community named “Cornwallis Hills.”

Cornwallis is remembered in street names in towns and cities across the state: Cornwallis Avenue in Gastonia; Cornwallis Streets in Garner, Pittsboro, and Winston Salem; Cornwallis Roads in Riegelwood and Rose Hill; Cornwallis Drive in Mocksville; Cornwallis Lane in Charlotte; and more. Cornwallis Drive in Greensboro is one of that city’s important thoroughfares.

Perhaps the most salient reminder of General Cornwallis is the long Cornwallis Road that runs from a point just north of Chapel Hill, across Durham and then continues through the Research Triangle Park. Thousands of commuters and travelers passing through Durham see the Cornwallis name.

Surely some of them wonder where the name came from. I, however, knowing where the name came from, wonder why our state so often and prominently honors a general whose invasion caused North Carolinians such great suffering.

Perhaps some of these streets were named to remind future generations of the strong resistance that General Cornwallis encountered from patriotic North Carolinians during campaign across our state.

A more cynical answer would be that we just do not pay much attention to the names of roads, either in the naming of them or in associating the road names with their origins. “Cornwallis” has become a common North Carolina road name, like “Oak” and “Elm.”

Whatever the reason, our state’s special association with the Cornwallis name should not make us ashamed. According to a new book on Cornwallis family by N.B. Cryer, it has played an important role in English history for more almost 800 years.

Someday, we should invite the current Lord Cornwallis to come here and visit the many places his forebear marked with the family name.

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D.G. Martin is the host of UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch, which airs Sundays at 5:00 p.m. Check his blog and view prior programs at www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch/

 

This week’s (May 13) guest is former Lt. Governor Pat Taylor, author of “Fourth Down and Goal to Go,” his delightful memoir full of stories from an earlier North Carolina.

Upcoming NC Bookwatch programs on UNC-TV at 5pm, Sundays:

May 13
Pat Taylor
Fourth Down and Goal to Go

May 20
Lee Smith
On Agate Hill

May 27
Charles Frazier
Thirteen Moons

More about this week’s program:
Pat Taylor
Fourth Down and Goal To Go
Part history and part autobiography, Fourth Down and Goal To Go is the humorous and telling narrative by North Carolina native Pat Taylor. A popular local storyteller, Taylor has recorded his life in the Old North State through tales that stretch back as far as the Great Depression.

Incorporating Southern humor and wit, Taylor’s accounts will spark laughter and recognition among any reader who grew up in the American South during the past seventy-five years. Reminiscing to a time when life was simpler, he elaborates on everyday details such as telephone party lines, ice wagons and milk delivery services. Still active in politics, law and academics, Taylor believes that studying our history is the key to a successful future.

In this episode of North Carolina Bookwatch, Taylor expounds on the events that have shaped North Carolina into the state it is today. Commenting on parts of North Carolina history, he successfully explains the present economic, political and social atmosphere of the region found in his must-read for any native North Carolinian or Southern historian.