The North Carolina Confederate Veterans Memorial Forest

North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial

“Unsurpassed Valor, Courage, and devotion to liberty”   www.ncwbts150.com

“The Official Website of the North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission”

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This is a unique memorial of 125,000 Red Spruce trees -- one for each North Carolina soldier who served in the Confederate armies 1861-1865 – were provided by the North Carolina Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1940, and planted over 125 acres in Haywood County in Pisgah National Forest by the Forest Service  from 1941 to 1943. The memorial runs along the Blue Ridge Parkway for a half-mile near mile marker 422. 

Inscription:  “The United Daughters of the Confederacy in cooperation with the United States Forestry Service planted this 125 acre forest as a living memorial to the 125,000 soldiers North Carolina provided the Confederacy.  The 125,000 Red Spruce tree forest was planted over a three –year period, 1941-1943.”

The Memorial Forest was dedicated August 11, 1956; Re-dedicated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans, August 11, 2001.

Raleigh publisher and former Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels spoke at the Vanderbilt Hotel memorial dedication ceremony in Asheville in July 1942, comparing the cruel postwar Reconstruction the American South endured to the plight of Nazi-occupied European countries during World War II.  Daniels stated that “The Southern people, aided by noble patriots in the North, overcame military rule and regained control of their affairs.  They have no doubt the suffering European nations will throw off [Nazi] rule by force and once again order their own way of life.”

Today the Red Spruce trees are well-over 50 feet tall and stand proudly as a testament and living memorial to the 125,000 North Carolinians who defended their families, homes, farms, State and country from enemy invasion – 40,000 of whom paid with their lives the ultimate sacrifice of the patriot.   

The monument was re-dedicated on 11 August 1956 with a permanent bronze UDC tablet, though vandalized and stolen in 1979 – was replaced with a wooden sign.