Buried with Honor

Civil War soldiers and veterans are buried in Calvary Episcopal Churchyard and Old Town Cemetery. Among the

fifty Confederates interred in the churchyard are Gen. William Dorsey Pender and Lt. Col. John L. Bridges. In May 1863,

Pender led a brigade at the Battle of Chancellorsville,"bearing the colors of a regiment in his own hands up to and over

the entrenchments, with the most distinguished gallantry." He was mortally wounded during the Battle of Gettysburg on

July 2, 1863. Bridges, who died in 1884, commanded the Edgecombe Guards at the Battle of Big Bethel, Virginia, on June

10, 1861.

  Henry Toole Clark of Tarboro, North Carolina's governor from July 1861 to September 1862, is also buried in Calvary

Episcopal Churchyard. He readied the state for war, assembling troops, gathering supplies, making critical alliances, and

defending vital ports from early Union attacks.

  Construction began in 1859 on Calvary Church, one of the county's most important landmarks, but stopped during the

war. The church was consecrated in 1868.

  Old Town Cemetery, surrounding Howard Memorial Presbyterian Church was created as a public burying ground in 1790.

Union soldiers killed at the Daniel's Schoolhouse engagement in 1863 were buried there until their families claimed the

remains after the war. The cemetery also contains marked and unmarked graves of the Confederate soldiers who died

here in Confederate hospitals. The gateway arch on St. Davis Street honors them. Of the more than 1,400 Edgecombe

County men who served in the Confederate army, many are buried in Tarboro (including 40 in Greenwood Cemetery on

Howard Avenue), while others rest in family cemeteries throughout the county.

Marker is at the intersection of East St. James Street and St. David Street, on the right when traveling east on East St. James Street.

Courtesy hmdb.org

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