The second lecture of 2014 in the four-year Sesquicentennial Lecture Series sponsored by the N.C. Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy will be held Saturday in Lincolnton.
Author and historian Dan Barefoot will be the guest speaker at 11 a.m. in the Charles R. Jonas Library Auditorium at 306 W. Main St. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Members of Lincolnton’s Southern Stars Chapter No. 477, UDC, will assist Salisbury’s Sue Curtis, division Sesquicentennial chairwoman, with the event.
Dan Barefoot was born in Charlotte and graduated with a juris doctor degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2012, he retired after 35 years of practicing law.
Barefoot completed 20 years of service as a member of the USS North Carolina Battleship Commission in 2013, having been appointed by three governors. He served as a state representative for the 44th District from 1998 to 2002.
Barefoot has authored 12 books, including “General Robert F. Hoke, Lee’s Modest Warrior” and “Let Us Die Like Brave Men: Behind the Dying Words of Confederate Warriors.”
Maj. Gen. Robert Frederick Hoke, CSA, for whom the Salisbury Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy was named, was born in Lincolnton May 27, 1837. He attended the Kentucky Military Institute before the War.
Hoke enlisted in a Lincoln County company, the Southern Stars, in April 1861. Having achieved a distinguished record on the battlefield, he advanced to the rank of brigadier general in just 20 months. In April 1864 he was promoted to major general for his boldness in capturing 3,000 federal troops at Plymouth, N.C. He served with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston at the Battle of Bentonville and was at the final surrender at Bennett House on April 26, 1865.
He fought in nearly every significant battle in the Eastern theater. It was said that he was picked by Lee as his own successor should anything ever happen to him.
After the war, Robert F. Hoke pursued various business endeavors including gold mining, iron mining, real estate and the railroad. He was a private man who rarely spoke about his activities in the war. He did not attend the reunions but worked to help raise funds for memorials.
Hoke died July 3, 1912, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh. He has been honored by having a county in eastern North Carolina named for him as well as a town plus having a Liberty Ship christened with his name during World War II.
Hoke had several connections to Salisbury. His uncle, Col. John Hoke, was sent to the Salisbury Confederate Prison with his regiment of 750 senior reserves to serve as guards in 1864. In 1865, Maj. Gen. Hoke received released POWs from Salisbury at the North East Ferry; and local resident A.H. Boyden was a courier for Maj. Gen Hoke.
The North Carolina Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy Sesquicentennial Committee has sponsored lectures throughout North Carolina’s 8 UDC Districts since May 2011. Lectures have been presented in Salisbury, Greensboro, Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Carolina Beach, Statesville, Wentworth, Rocky Mount, Fayetteville, Franklin, Pinehurst, Butner, Hickory and Concord.
For information about future lectures, visit the N.C. Division website at www.ncudc.org or contact Sesquicentennial Committee Chairwoman Sue Curtis at southpaws@fibrant.com.