Abstract:
North Carolina has many memorials in remembrance of the service of its Confederate soldiers. One of the most unusual is in Haywood County. In 1925, a fire ravaged over 25,000 acres of red spruce and Fraser fir trees. In 1939, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDF) at their state convention in Asheville proposed the planting of 125,000 trees in Haywood County to honor the same number of soldiers North Carolina sent to serve in the Civil War. By 1943, seedlings representing each soldier had been planted. Pegram describes the forest's growth up to the present. The forest may be viewed from the Mount Hardy Overlook, located at Milepost 422.8, on the Blue Ridge Parkway.