A fascinating exhibit commemorating the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War is on display in the Boyd Library on the campus of Sandhills Community College. It is on loan by the Rufus Barringer Civil War Round Table.

As historian Bernard DeVoto stated, "The Civil War is the crux of our history." 1862 was the first full year of the War with fighting throughout much of the South and West.

1862 was also a year of "firsts." The Battle of Shiloh was the largest battle in the U.S. at that time. The country began to slowly realize the scale of casualties that were to come. The Seven Days Battles marked the rise of Robert E. Lee as the premier Confederate general. In the Western theater of war, a relatively unknown general, Ulysses S. Grant, was making his mark. The Battle of Antietam was Lee's first invasion of the North, and was the bloodiest single day in U.S. history to date. Antietam was also the battle where photography brought the reality of war to the public eye.

1862 was also the year Lincoln was looking for an effective commander of the Army of the Potomac, and it was the year that Lincoln changed the scope and goal of the war with the drafting of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The exhibit highlights some of these events and has a number of artifacts from local collectors.