Waynesville: Where the Civil War Ended in the East

Waynesville was founded in eighteen oh nine as the county seat of Haywood County on land donated by Revolutionary War veteran Colonel Robert Love, who named it for his commander, General Mad Anthony Wayne. More than fifty years later, this mountain town became the scene of one of the last Confederate surrenders east of the Mississippi River. On May seventh, eighteen sixty-five, weeks after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Confederate General James Martin accepted terms here from Union forces following a skirmish at White Sulphur Springs.

Colonel William Holland Thomas, who helped negotiate the terms, was a white man who also served as Principal Chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. His Cherokee and mountain soldier unit, known as Thomas's Legion, had fought through the war and came home to a peace that finally reached even these high valleys.