The “Nursery of Patriotism” exhibition focuses on the Civil War, World War I and World War II and is organized according to the major topics that emerged. Using 150-200 letters, documents, photographs, and publications to explore the University’s contributions to and involvement in the Civil War, World War I and World War II, the exhibit displays the impact on the University as well.
The exhibition also tells the story of the University by following individuals such as Ruffin Thomson of Hinds County, Mississippi, who attended UNC from 1859 to 1861. Ruffin left the university to join the 18th Mississippi Infantry Regiment in 1861 and was promoted to the Confederate Marine Corps in 1864. On exhibit will be one of Ruffin’s letters describing the campus at the beginning of the war, a detail of an 18th Mississippi Infantry muster roll bearing his name, his military promotion letter to the Confederate Marine Corps, and an excerpt from the University of North Carolina Record conferring him and other military alumni degrees in 1911.
For more details, visit the digitized exhibition or related Spike Saunders’s World War II Correspondence talk.
