One who reads nowadays is of necessity more or less familiar with the natural beautifies of North Carolina. “The Land of the Sky” is not only a by-phrase with North Carolinians, but in every section of the country there are hundreds of persons who have been lured to North Carolina to view her mountains and hundreds of others who dream of viewing the unsurpassed beauty in the future.
Pinehurst and Southern Pines already are winter meccas for many persons who leave home to escape the hard winters; and Wrightsville Beach is clustered in the summer months with a most cosmopolitan crowd.
Our natural beauties are coming into their own with a rush, but we have other attractions that should prove great drawing cards but of which even our own people are ignorant. One such attraction is the Guilford Battleground.
How many people in North Carolina know anything of this battle ground or its history? Of course school children read of the battle that was waged there and the public as a whole dimly remembers that there is such a place, but how many really know anything about the battle that was found and the heroic deeds that were wrought?
One cannot visit this famous battleground, now maintained by the Federal government, without a feeling of pride. As one views the statues, shafts and other markers that point out to strangers the spot where heroes fought and died, there comes a feeling of hunger for more details, for more facts about these men who wrote in blood the early history of the United States.
“Five Hundred Men Died Here,” reads a marker, while just a little distance from this spot one views the statue of some man or woman who was conspicuously gallant in those days when the pioneers were fighting for a principle on which this government is founded.
Natural beauty as well as a historical background and patriotic atmosphere is to be found at this battleground. The tree known as “Cornwallis’ Oak” is but one of many that beautify the grounds today. It would be difficult to find anywhere in this part of the country a tree that exceeds in beauty and grandeur the oak to which General Cornwallis is said to have tied his horse while the battle of Guilford Court House was raging.
Were it possible for every school child in North Carolina to pay a visit to this battleground we are sure they would get a different vision of the battle. They would have a keener pride in the history, to be sure, and they would get an atmosphere that is more important than historical data and dates.
From the editorial page of The Concord Daily Tribune, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1925-09-15/ed-1/seq-4/
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