Battle House
Surrender-Role Reversal
Until it was demolished in 1899, the Battle House, a stagecoach house and inn, stood just to your left.
There, on May 7, 1865, a proposed Union surrender was transformed into a Confederate capitulation.
After Col. William C. Bartlett's 2nd N.C. Mounted Infantry (U.S.) occupied Waynesville early in May, the troops emptied the jail (located near the current police station), then burned it and the courthouse. They also burned the former residence of Robert Love, Sr., a well-regarded Revolutionary hero, founder of Waynesville, and father of Confederate Col. Matthew Love. The Federals scoured the surrounding area, plundering, raiding, and stealing horses and provisions from civilians.
On May 6, a company of Confederate Col. William H. Thomas's Legion under Lt. Robert T. Conley defeated a numerically superior company of Bartlett's mounted infantry at White Sulphur Springs, one mile west of here. The Union troops concentrated in Waynesville, which the Confederates then surrounded. Besides Thomas's 300 Cherokee soldiers, the Confederates also had 300 men under Col. Robert Love ll, all commanded by Gen. James Martin. During the night, Thomas's men yelled and danced around hundreds of campfires on the mountain slopes to intimidate the Federals. On the morning of May 7, Bartlett sent a flag of truce to Thomas for a surrender meeting here at the Battle House. After considering the surrenders of Gen. Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia on April 9 and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's force in North Carolina on April 26, however, Martin decided to surrender his command (western North Carolina), including Thomas's Legion, to Bartlett. The ceremony occurred two days later.
Marker is on North Main Street (North Carolina Route 276).
Courtesy hmdb.org
