Editing Zebulon Vance

{{Short description|American politician (1830–1894)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name                = Zeb Vance
|image               = Zebulon Baird Vance - Brady-Handy.jpg
|jr/sr               = United States Senator
|state               = [[North Carolina]]
|term_start          = March 4, 1879
|term_end            = April 14, 1894
|predecessor         = [[Augustus S. Merrimon]]
|successor           = [[Thomas Jordan Jarvis|Thomas Jarvis]]
|term1               = '''''[[Unseated members of the United States Congress|Not seated]]<br>1871'''''
|predecessor1        = [[Joseph Carter Abbott|Joseph Abbott]]
|successor1          = [[Matt W. Ransom|Matt Ransom]]
|order2              = 37th and 43rd [[Governor of North Carolina]]
|lieutenant2         = [[Thomas J. Jarvis]]
|term_start2         = January 1, 1877
|term_end2           = February 5, 1879
|predecessor2        = [[Curtis Hooks Brogden|Curtis Brogden]]
|successor2          = [[Thomas Jordan Jarvis|Thomas Jarvis]]
|term_start3         = September 8, 1862
|term_end3           = May 29, 1865
|predecessor3        = [[Henry Toole Clark|Henry Clark]]
|successor3          = [[William Woods Holden|William Holden]]
|state4              = [[North Carolina]]
|district4           = {{ushr|NC|8|8th}}
|term_start4         = December 7, 1858
|term_end4           = March 3, 1861
|predecessor4        = [[Thomas L. Clingman]]
|successor4          = [[Robert B. Vance]] (1873)
|office5             = Member of the [[North Carolina Senate]]
|term_start5         = December 1854
|term_end5           = November 1856
|predecessor5        =
|successor5          = David Coleman
|birth_name          = Zebulon Baird Vance
|birth_date          = {{birth date|1830|5|13}}
|birth_place         = [[Buncombe County, North Carolina|Reems Creek, North Carolina]], U.S.
|death_date          = {{death date and age|1894|4|14|1830|5|13}}
|death_place         = [[Washington, D.C.]], U.S.
|restingplace        = [[Riverside Cemetery (Asheville, North Carolina)|Riverside Cemetery]]
|spouse              = [[Harriett Newell Espy Vance|Harriett Newell Espy]] (1853~1878; her death)<br>[[Florence Steele Martin Vance|Florence Steele Martin]] (m. 1880)
|children            = 5
|parents             = David Vance Jr.<br>[[Mira Margaret Baird Vance|Mira Margaret Baird]]
|party               = [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig]] (1852–1856)<br>[[Know-Nothing|American]] (1857)<br>Conservative (1862–1868)<br>[[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] (1868–1894)
|education           = [[University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill]]
|allegiance          = [[Confederate States of America|Confederate States]]
|rank                = [[Colonel (United States)|Colonel]]
|unit                = [[26th North Carolina Infantry Regiment]]<br>Rough and Ready Guards
|battles             = [[Battle of New Bern]]<br>[[Seven Days Battles]]
|signature           = Signature of Zebulon Baird Vance.jpg
|signature_alt       = Signature of Zebulon Baird Vance
}}
'''Zebulon Baird Vance''' (May 13, 1830&nbsp;– April 14, 1894) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the [[List of governors of North Carolina|37th and 43rd governor of North Carolina]], a [[United States Senate|U.S. Senator]] from North Carolina, and a [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] officer during the [[American Civil War]].<ref name=":24">{{Cite web |title=Zebulon B. Vance |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zebulon-B-Vance |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=Britannica |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":6" />

A prolific writer and noted public speaker, Vance became one of the most influential Southern leaders of the Civil War and [[Reconstruction Era]] periods.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":39">{{Cite book |last=Tucker |first=Glenn |url=https://archive.org/details/zebvancechampion00tuck/page/n11/mode/2up |title=Zeb Vance: Champion of Personal Freedom |publisher=Bobbs-Merrill |year=1966 |location=Indianapolis |language=en |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> As a leader of the [[New South]], Vance favored the rapid modernization of the Southern economy, railroad expansion, school construction, and reconciliation with the North.<ref name="Leonard C. Schlup 2003 p 511">Leonard C. Schlup, and James Gilbert Ryan, eds. ''Historical Dictionary of the Gilded Age'' (2003) p. 511.</ref> In addition, he frequently spoke out against [[antisemitism]].<ref name=":23">{{Cite news |last=Elliston |first=Jon |date=January 19, 2005 |title=Zeb Vance: No Simple Man |work=Mountain Xpress |url=https://mountainx.com/arts/art-news/0119vance-php/ |access-date=April 10, 2022}}</ref> Considered [[Progressivism|progressive]] by many during his lifetime, Vance was also a slave owner and is now regarded as a racist by some modern historians and biographers.<ref name=":23" /><ref>{{Cite news |last1=Weil |first1=Julie Zauzmer |last2=Blanco |first2=Adrian |last3=Dominguez |first3=Leo |date=January 10, 2022 |title=More than 1,700 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation. |language=en |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2022/congress-slaveowners-names-list/ |access-date=January 29, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title=Congress slaveowners |date=January 27, 2022 |url=https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-congress-slaveowners |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=January 29, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Swofford |first=Stan |date=January 21, 2005 |title=UNC-CH Confronts Its Past IN Bell Dispute Family Defends Ancestor After Racism Charges Arise |url=https://greensboro.com/unc-ch-confronts-its-past-in-bell-dispute-family-defends-ancestor-after-racism-charges-arise/article_7fcaefd6-3f30-5d23-a3ea-16a89e8a7a68.html |access-date=May 12, 2023 |website=Greensboro News and Record |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":29" />

==Early life==
[[File:Zebulon Baird Vance birthplace, Reems Creek, North Carolina.jpg|thumb|left|Vance Cabin, Reems Creek, North Carolina in the 19th century]]
[[File:Fireplace_inside_Zebulon_Baird_Vance_birthplace,_Reems_Creek,_North_Carolina.jpg|thumb|left|Fireplace inside [[Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace]] cabin in the 19th century]]
[[File:Zebulon Vance young.jpg|thumb|left|Vance, {{Circa|1845 to 1850}}]]
Vance was born in a [[Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace|log cabin]] in the settlement of Reems Creek in [[Buncombe County, North Carolina]] near present-day [[Weaverville, North Carolina|Weaverville]], and was baptized at the Presbyterian Church on Reems Creek.<ref>[http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/sections/hs/vance/vance.htm Vance Birthplace, official website] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031209033827/http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/Sections/HS/vance/vance.htm|date=December 9, 2003}}. North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. Retrieved on April 3, 2012.</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=Vance, Zebulon Baird 1830–1894 |url=https://bioguide.congress.gov/search/bio/V000021 |access-date=April 9, 2022 |website=Biographical Directory of the United States Congress}}</ref><ref name=":30">{{Cite book |last=Dowd |first=Clement |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeofzebulonbvance00dowd/page/n11/mode/2up |title=Life of Zebulon B. Vance |publisher=Observer Printing and Publishing House |year=1897 |location=Charleston, South Carolina |language=en |access-date=April 10, 2022 |via=Hathi Trust}}</ref> He was the third of eight children of [[Mira Margaret Baird Vance|Mira Margaret Baird]] and David Vance Jr., a farmer and innkeeper.<ref name=":7">{{Cite web |last=Barrett |first=John G. |date=1996 |title=Vance, Zebulon Baird |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/vance-zebulon-baird |access-date=April 9, 2022 |website=NCpedia}}</ref><ref name=":30" /><ref name=":36" /> His paternal grandfather, [[David Vance (soldier)|David Vance]], was a member of the [[North Carolina House of Commons]] and a colonel in the [[American Revolutionary War]], serving under [[George Washington]] at [[Valley Forge]].<ref name=":11">{{Cite web |title=Zebulon Baird Vance |url=http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/nc/bio/public/vance.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060705134106/http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/nc/bio/public/vance.htm |archive-date=July 5, 2006 |access-date=April 9, 2022 |website=eNCyclopedia |publisher=The State Library of North Carolina}}</ref> His maternal grandfather was [[Zebulon Baird]], a state senator from Buncombe County, North Carolina.<ref name=":30" /> His uncle was Congressman [[Robert Brank Vance]], namesake of his elder brother, Congressman [[Robert B. Vance]].<ref name=":6" /> He was reared by [[Venus Vance|Venus]], a house slave.<ref name=":9"/>

Around 1833, the Vance family moved to Lapland, now [[Marshall, North Carolina]].<ref name=":36">McKinney, Gordon B. "Zeb Vance and the Construction of the Western North Carolina Railroad." ''Appalachian Journal'' 29, no. 1/2 (2001): 58–67. {{JSTOR|40934142}}.</ref> There, David Vance operated a stand, providing drovers with provisions as they moved hogs and other animals along the [[Buncombe Turnpike]] to markets to the south and east.<ref name=":36" /> Although frequently short of cash, the family enslaved as many as eighteen people.<ref name=":11" /> Vance's family had an unusually large library for its era and location, left to them by an uncle.<ref name=":30" />

At the age of six, Vance attended schools operated by M. Woodson, Esq., first at [[Flat Creek, North Carolina|Flat Creek]] and, later, on the French Broad River.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":19">Fowler, R. H. (1998). Mouth of the South. ''Civil War Times Illustrated'', ''37''(3), 46. via EBSCO. Accessed April 10, 2022.</ref> Both were far enough from home that he had to board with others.<ref name=":30" /> He also was a student at a school in Lapland run by Jane Hughey.<ref name=":30" />

While a youth, Vance broke his thigh when he fell from a tree.<ref name=":30" /> This was treated by confining Vance in a box, as was common medical care at the time.<ref name=":30" /> As a result of this injury, his right leg was shorter, requiring him to wear a taller heel on the right shoe.<ref name=":30" /> Even so, it was said that Vance had "a peculiar and slightly ambling gait".<ref name=":30" />

When he was thirteen years old in fall 1843, Vance went to the [[Washington College Academy|Washington College]] in [[Tennessee]].<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":39" /> In January 1844, his father died from a construction accident, forcing Vance to withdraw before the school year was over.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":39" /> Mira Vance sold much of the family's property to pay her husband's many debts and to support her seven children.<ref name=":9" /> As one writer noted, the family was "embarrassed with debt".<ref name=":30" /> She moved her family to nearby [[Asheville, North Carolina|Asheville]], bringing along enslaved women and children as household workers.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":9" /> However, the family still lacked the money to send Vance back to school in Tennessee.<ref name=":9" /> Instead, Vance and his brother Robert attended [[Newton Academy]] in Asheville.<ref name=":39" />

To help support his family, Vance worked for John H. Patton as a hotel clerk in Warm Springs, now [[Hot Springs, North Carolina]].<ref name=":30" /><ref name=":39" /> In Asheville, Vance studied law under attorney John W. Woodfin.<ref name=":39" /> When he was 21 years old, Vance wrote to a family friend, [[David Lowry Swain|David L. Swain]], asking for a loan to study law in college.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":39" /> Swain was a former North Carolina governor and then president of the [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]].<ref name=":9" /> Swain was also an elementary schoolmate of Vance's mother.<ref name=":30" /> Swain arranged for a $300 loan for Vance from the university.<ref name=":11" />

Vance attended [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]] starting in July 1851 and had a "brilliant academic year".<ref name=":7" /> One of his classmates, Major James W. Wilson, recalled Vance's arrival in Chapel Hill with "homemade shoes and clothes, about three inches of between pants and shoes, showing his sturdy ankles...."<ref name=":30" /> Another classmate, [[Kemp P. Battle]], wrote Vance "had a brain large and active; a memory tenacious, a nature overflowing with joyous love of fun, and to a surprising degree accurate information of many subjects and many authors."<ref name=":30" /> While at the university, Vance was a member of the [[Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies|Dialectic Society]], which helped improve his oratory skills, as well as his ability to speak extemporarily.<ref name=":30" /> He also joined the [[Phi Gamma Delta]] fraternity.<ref name=":12">{{Cite web |date= |title=Catalogue of the Members of the Dialectic Society Instituted in the University of North Carolina June 3, 1795, Together with Historical Sketches (1890) |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/true/dialectic/dialectic.html |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=Documenting the American South}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Zebulon Baird Vance (UNC 1851) {{!}} Phi Gamma Delta Digital Repository |url=https://phigamarchives.org/islandora/object/phigam:3490 |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=phigamarchives.org}}</ref> Vance received an LL.D in 1852 and repaid the loan from the university with interest.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":30" />

Vance then went to [[Raleigh, North Carolina|Raleigh]], where he studied law with Judge [[William Horn Battle]] of the [[North Carolina Supreme Court]] and [[Samuel F. Phillips]], former [[Solicitor General of the United States]].<ref name=":42">{{Cite news |date=April 15, 1894 |title=Death of Senator Vance |page=5 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1894/04/15/106903181.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 |access-date=April 13, 2022}}</ref>

==Pre-Civil War career==
=== Attorney ===
[[File:Zebulon Baird Vance first law office Asheville NC.jpg|thumb|Vance's first law office, Asheville, North Carolina]]
On January 1, 1852, Vance was admitted to the [[North Carolina Bar Association|North Carolina Bar]] and received his county court license in Raleigh.<ref name=":11" /> He returned to Asheville where he practiced law.<ref name=":7" /> Vance said, "I went out to Court horseback, and carried a pair of saddle bags with a change of shirts and the North Carolina Form book...."<ref name=":30" /> Almost immediately, the Buncombe County magistrates elected Vance as Solicitor of the Court of Pleas.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":30" /> He was admitted to the state's superior courts in 1853.<ref name=":7" /> In 1858, he became partners with attorney William Caleb Brown.<ref name=":39" />

Although he did not always prepare fully for cases, Vance was skilled at reading the jury and remembering every detail of testimony.<ref name=":30" /> However, his success in court "was usually the result of wit, humor, boisterous eloquence, and clever retorts, not knowledge of the law."<ref name=":7" />

=== North Carolina Senate ===
After canvassing for [[Whig Party (United States)|Whig]] presidential candidate [[Winfield Scott]] in 1852, Vance became interested in his entry into politics.<ref name=":9" /> In 1853, he was a delegate representing Buncombe County at a railroad convention in [[Cumberland Gap, Tennessee]].<ref name=":36" /> The goal of the convention was to convince the [[Charleston and Cincinnati Railroad]] to build a route through the mountains in [[Western North Carolina]].<ref name=":36" />

Next, Vance ran as a Whig candidate for the North Carolina Senate, winning with a term starting in December 1854.<ref name=":9" /> Vance was a Whig in the mode of [[Henry Clay]].<ref name=":9" /> He wrote, "I was raised in the Whig faith, and taught to revere the names of Clay, [[Daniel Webster|Webster]], and other great leaders of that party."<ref name=":9" /> Whig policies were more beneficial to Western North Carolina and its smaller farms where Vance was from, while the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] of that era tended to advocate for the owners of large slave plantations found in [[Eastern North Carolina]].<ref name=":9" />

While in the legislature, Vance worked on issues related to transportation in Western North Carolina, including introducing a bill for a public road in [[Yancey County, North Carolina|Yancey County]] and another bill to authorize subscriptions to fund the [[French Broad and Greenville Railroad]].<ref name=":36" /> He also supported extending the [[Western North Carolina Railroad]] into the state's mountain counties, favoring a route that would take the tracks to [[Knoxville, Tennessee]] by way of Asheville, North Carolina.<ref name=":36" />

When the Whig Party collapsed over the issue of slavery in 1854, Vance refused to join the primarily Southern Democratic Party or the anti-slavery Republicans, ultimately settling on the American Party or [[Know Nothing|Know-Nothings]].<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":39" /> However, Vance lost his campaign for reelection to the North Carolina Senate in 1856 to David Coleman.<ref name=":9" />

=== Journalism ===
In March 1855, John D. Hyman of the Asheville ''Spectator'' convinced Vance to join the newspaper as an editorial assistant.<ref name=":35">{{Cite news |date=March 21, 1855 |title=Asheville Spectator |pages=3 |work=The Spirit of the Age (Raleigh, North Carolina) |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1661773/praise-for-zeb/ |access-date=April 11, 2022 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref> He predicted that Vance would have "a brilliant career in the editorial line".<ref name=":35" /> This weekly newspaper was published from 1853 to 1858 and was the leading Whig paper in the region.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Asheville Spectator (Asheville, N.C.) 1853–1858 |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/sn91068019/ |access-date=April 11, 2022 |website=Library of Congress}}</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=CA8yAQAAMAAJ Representative Men of the South]. Philadelphia: C. Robson & Company, 1880. p. 293 via Google Books, April 11, 2022.</ref> One of the stories Vance wrote was about the search for Dr. [[Elisha Mitchell]] who disappeared in June 1857, having fallen to his death while trying to prove which peak was the highest in North Carolina.<ref name=":39" /> Mitchell taught Vance geology at the University of North Carolina, and Vance immediately volunteered for the search party.<ref name=":39" /> His account of the search, published in the ''Spectator'' in July 1857, is considered the most complete record of the tragic event.<ref name=":39" />

Vance stopped working as joint editor of the ''Spectator'' after a year, but became half-owner of the newspaper.<ref name=":39" /> However, Hyman's steadfast support of Vance in the ''Spectator'' was a huge help to Vance's political career.<ref name=":39" /> The opposition paper, the Asheville ''News'' wrote, "Mr. Vance is the ''Spectator''<nowiki/>'s specialty, and at every mention of his name it sputters and snaps and snarls like a cat with its tail in a steel trap. To question the correctness of his views on a public issue, the ''Spectator'' seems to regard as little short of treason."<ref name=":39" />

=== U.S. Congress ===
[[File:Zebulon_B._Vance,_Representative_from_North_Carolina,_Thirty-fifth_Congress,_half-length_portrait.jpg|thumb|Vance, 35th Congress photo by [[Julian Vannerson]], 1859]]
In 1858, Vance ran for a seat in the [[United States Congress|U.S. Congress]] opened by the resignation of [[Thomas Lanier Clingman]].<ref name=":7" /> For this campaign, he went on a fifteen-county speaking tour that "set the mountains on fire".<ref name=":17">Yates, Richard E. "[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/JSH/3/1/Zebulon_Vance_as_War_Governor_of_North_Carolina*.html Zebulon B. Vance: as War Governor of North Carolina, 1862–1865]", ''Journal of Southern History'' (1937) vol. 3, no.1, pp 43–75.</ref> Vance was elected for a term starting in December 1858.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":6" /> At 28 years old, he was the youngest member of Congress at the time.<ref name=":11" /> He was reelected in 1859 over his former political opponent David Coleman.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":39" />

==== Salaries and deficits ====
When Congress proposed giving a $10,000 or 25% increase in fringe benefits to each representative in the next session, Vance spoke out.<ref name=":39" /> He said, "I do not think he [my successor] is entitled to $10,000 more for miscellaneous items than I am myself...the whole bill reminds me very much of the bills I have seen of fast young men at fashionable hotels: For two days board, $5, sundries, $50. It is like a comet, a very small body with an exceedingly great tail."<ref name=":39" />

Similarly, he showed a dislike for the recurring Treasury deficit. Ignoring the figures and charts presented by his colleagues, Vance said, "As we are in debt, and spending more than our income, and our income is derived principally from the tariff, we have to do one of three things; either raise that income, lower our expenses, or walk into the insolvent court and file our schedule. I do not think there is, or ever was, a political economist on earth who could deny these propositions."<ref name=":39" />

==== Slavery and secession ====
While serving in Congress Vance was pro-slavery,<ref name=":9" /> saying in March 1860:

:Plainly and unequivocally, common sense says keep the slave where he is now—in servitude. The interest of the slave himself imperatively demands it. The interest of the master, of the United States, of the world, nay of humanity itself, says, keep the slave in his bondage; treat him humanely, teach him Christianity, care for him in sickness and old age, and make his bondage light as may be; but above all, keep him a slave and in strict subordination; for that is his normal condition; the one in which alone he can promote the interest of himself or his fellows.<ref>Calder, Thomas (June 16, 2020). "[https://mountainx.com/news/asheville-archives-zebulon-vance-denounces-abolitionists-1860/ Asheville Archives: Zebulon Vance argues in favor of slavery, 1860]". ''Mountain Xpress''. Retrieved February 21, 2022.</ref>

Despite his support for the institution of slavery, Vance was openly against North Carolina's [[Secession in the United States|secession]] from the union,<ref name=":16">Adler, Selig. " Zebulon B. Vance and the 'Scattered Nation]'" ''Journal of Southern History'' {{JSTOR|2191527}} (1941) 7#3 pp.&nbsp;357–377.</ref> preferring a strategy where both slavery and the union could be preserved.<ref name=":23" /> In writing to a friend, he advised caution about secession:

:"We have everything to gain and nothing on earth to lose by delay, but by too hasty action we may take a fatal step that we never can retrace—may lose a heritage that we can never recover though we seek it earnestly and with tears."<ref name=":25">{{Cite web |last=Gerard |first=Philip |date=June 28, 2011 |title=Unflinching Leader |url=https://www.ourstate.com/zebulon-vance/ |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=Our State |language=en-US}}</ref>

However, Vance was in favor of a secession convention so that the people of North Carolina could make their own decision.<ref name=":25" /> In March 1861, Vance traveled throughout North Carolina, trying to persuade the State not to follow South Carolina by seceding.<ref name=":19" /> In April, he was addressing a large crowd when a telegraph was read announcing the [[Battle of Fort Sumter|firing on Fort Sumter]] and President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers.<ref name=":19" /> At that moment, Vance recalled sadly changing into a secessionist, as he "preferred to shed northern rather than southern blood."<ref name=":19" /> On the spot, he shifted his speech to a call to fight for South Carolina.<ref name=":19" /> After the [[Battle of Fort Sumter]], Vance resigned from Congress and headed home to Buncombe County.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":16" />

== Civil War ==
[[File:Histories of the several regiments and battalions from North Carolina, in the great war 1861-'65 (1901) (14759502121).jpg|thumb|Vance in the Civil War]]
[[File:Zebulon Vance.jpg|thumb|Governor Vance on his Inauguration Day 1862]]

=== Soldier ===
On May 4, 1861, two weeks before North Carolina seceded, Vance raised a company of local men known as the [[Rough and Ready Guards]] and became their captain.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":25" /> The Rough and Ready Guards became part of Company F, [[14th North Carolina Infantry]], and encamped near [[Morganton, North Carolina]].<ref name=":25" /><ref name=":7" /> By June 1861, Vance and the 14th were in [[Suffolk, Virginia]], helping to defend [[Norfolk, Virginia|Norfolk]].<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":25" /> That August, Vance was elected colonel of the [[26th North Carolina Infantry Regiment]], stationed at [[Fort Macon State Park|Fort Macon]] in [[Carteret County, North Carolina]].<ref name=":25" />

Vance and the 26th engaged in the [[Battle of New Bern (1862)|Battle of New Bern]] in March 1862.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":11" /> Although outnumbered four to one, Vance's troops held back the enemy for five hours and were the last Confederates to leave the battlefield.<ref name=":25" /> Vance wrote his wife praising the performance of his men."<ref name=":25" /> Even in their 35-mile forced retreat, Vance showed bravery.<ref name=":25" /> He nearly drowned swimming 75 yards across the flooded Bryce's Creek to get boats for his men—the three soldiers who swam with him drowned.<ref name=":25" />

In July 1862, Vance and the 26th fought at [[Battle of Malvern Hill|Malvern Hill]] outside of [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]], Virginia.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":11" /><ref name=":25" /> The Confederates were not victorious, but Vance again showed "unflinching leadership".<ref name=":25" /> When North Carolina needed a new governor, his name was immediately mentioned.<ref name=":25" />

=== Governor, 1st term ===

==== Campaign ====
In 1862, Vance ran for governor as the "soldier's candidate" and easily won over secessionist Democrat William J. Johnston of [[Charlotte, North Carolina|Charlotte]].<ref name=":11" /><ref name=":13">{{Cite web |last=Faulkner |first=Ronnie W. |title=Conservative Party |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/conservative-party |access-date=November 13, 2020 |website=NCPedia |publisher=North Carolina Government & Heritage Library at the State Library of North Carolina}}</ref><ref name=":7" /> Vance did not leave his troops to campaign, nor did he give any speeches or present a platform.<ref name=":17" /> Instead, he wrote a letter that was published in the [[Fayetteville, North Carolina|Fayetteville]] ''Observer'' saying, "If, therefore, my fellow citizens believe that I could serve the great Cause better as Governor than I am now doing, and should see proper to confer this responsibility upon me without solicitation on my part, I should not feel at liberty to decline it, however conscious of my own unworthiness."<ref name=":25" />

His campaign was overseen by [[William Woods Holden|William W. Holden]] of Raleigh's ''North-Carolina Standard'' and [[Edward J. Hale]], of the Fayetteville ''Observer.<ref name=":17" /><ref name=":19" />''<ref name=":25" /> Holden had been driven out of the Democratic Party in 1860 because he opposed secession.''<ref name=":17" />'' Holden, like Vance, was now a member of the Conservative Democratic Party of North Carolina, a coalition of former Whigs and Democrats who were against secession.<ref name=":13" /><ref name=":7" /><ref name=":30" /> Holden simply wrote that voters should "elect the man who defended their homes", noting that Johnston was at home tending to his railroads while Vance was "in the face of the foe, with his sword drawn, ready for action".''<ref name=":17" />'' It also helped that Johnston's Democratic party could be blamed for "high prices, conscription, military defeats, suffering of the soldiers, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus".''<ref name=":17" />''

Vance received 54,423 of 74,871 total votes, carrying all but twelve of the state's counties.''<ref name=":17" />'' This continues to be the largest margin of victory for a governor's race in the history of North Carolina.<ref name=":25" /> Vance was serving with the 26th in the trenches at [[Petersburg, Virginia]] when he learned about the outcome of the election.<ref name=":26">{{Cite web |last=Darty |first=J. D. |date=July 15, 2015 |title=Five Things You Probably Didn't Know About Zebulon Vance |url=https://riversidecemeterync.wordpress.com/2015/07/15/five-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-zebulon-vance/ |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=Historic Riverside Cemetery |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":42" /> He resigned his commission and traveled to Raleigh to become governor.<ref name=":26" /> At the time, he was 32 years old.<ref name=":23" />

==== War Governor ====
For his inauguration on September 8, 1862, Vance's old regimental band, the Johnny Rebs, performed "Governor Vance's Inauguration March".<ref name=":25" />''<ref name=":17" />'' During his address, Vance said he would "prosecute the war until the South obtained its independence".''<ref name=":17" />'' This helped calm the North Carolina Democrats and the Confederate government who both feared Vance would rejoin the union or withdraw from the Confederacy.''<ref name=":17" />'' General [[Robert E. Lee]] said, "Vance's oratory was worth 5,000 soldiers".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Dykman |first=Wilma |date=July 9, 1961 |title=North Carolina Salutes a Native Son |pages=299 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/07/09/118044644.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 |access-date=April 13, 2022}}</ref>

Vance's first objective was to confine the Union troops in the eastern counties, hold the state's main port [[Wilmington, North Carolina|Wilmington]], and protect the [[Weldon Railroad]].''<ref name=":17" />'' Thus, he worked with the Confederate war department to add troops at [[Kinston, North Carolina]] to protect the railroad and watch the enemy encampments.''<ref name=":17" />'' Despite Vance's continued requests to Richmond for military reinforcements, he was ignored and North Carolina's defenses failed when 10,000 Union troops advanced on Kinston in December 1862.''<ref name=":17" />'' To help solve the shortage of soldiers, Vance offered amnesty to all deserters who returned to service; large numbers of North Carolina's soldiers returned to active duty in 1863.''<ref name=":17" />''

Vance aspired to provide the state's troops with needed food, clothing, and weapons.<ref name=":7" /> He also demonstrated concern for the soldiers' families.<ref name=":9" /> He continued to operate salt works on the coast, selling the salt at one-third of its value and distributing salt supplies to every county for meat preservation.''<ref name=":17" /><ref name=":19" />'' He also proposed a welfare system and kept the textile mills operational.<ref name=":9" /> To achieve this, Vance relied on [[Blockade runners of the American Civil War|blockade runners]] to export North Carolina's cotton abroad.<ref name=":11" /> This yielded funds to provide food and money for the general population and to keep the mills open; the legislature was able to issue $6,000,000 for the care of impoverished citizens and keep the mills open.''<ref name=":17" />'' The blockade runners also brought needed shoes, blankets, and medicine.<ref name=":19" /> Vance ensured that his state's soldiers were kept clothed by having women and children fashion new uniforms in their homes with material manufactured in the state's mills.<ref name=":11" /><ref name=":19" /> As a result, North Carolina was the only state to clothe and equip its regiments during the Civil War.<ref name=":11" /> Vance also shared surpluses with the rest of the Confederacy; [[General James Longstreet]]'s troops received 12,000 uniforms from North Carolina after the [[Battle of Chickamauga]].<ref name=":11" />

Vance was a major proponent of individual rights and local self-government, often putting him at odds with the Confederate government.<ref name=":7" /> When [[Jefferson Davis|President Jefferson Davis]] announced plans to indefinitely imprison Southerners suspected of "disloyalty" without a trial, Vance refused to deprive North Carolinians of their constitutional rights, saying he would rather recall the state's soldiers fighting in Virginia and order them to protect his constituents by force if necessary.<ref name=":22">{{Cite web|last=Rasmussen|first=Steve|date=May 7, 2003|title=Asheville's monument to tolerance|url=https://mountainx.com/news/community-news/0507vance-php/|access-date=February 23, 2022|website=Mountain Xpress}}</ref><ref name=":21" /> Davis did not risk challenging Vance; as a result, North Carolina was the only state to observe the right of ''[[habeas corpus]]'' and keep its courts fully functional during the war.<ref name=":7" />

Vance also opposed Confederate [[conscription]] practices, which became more severe as Confederate defeats mounted.''<ref name=":17" />'' He was especially against the policy that allowed plantation owners and rich businessmen to avoid fighting by paying others to serve in their place, a practice described as creating "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight".<ref name=":25" /> Postwar, Vance testified in the hearing investigating [[George Pickett]]'s execution of 22 alleged Confederate deserters in the aftermath of [[Battle of New Bern (1862)|the Battle of New Bern.]]<ref name=":18" /> He testified that the North Carolinians had joined on the understanding that they would be used only for local defense and that "the Confederate government did not keep faith with these local troops, who were transfer[red] to the regular service in violation of their enlistment agreement."<ref name=":18">{{cite book |last=Current |first=Richard Nelson |date=1992 |title=Lincoln's Loyalists: Union soldiers from the Confederacy |location=Lawrenceville, New Jersey |publisher=Princeton University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/lincolnsloyalist0000curr/page/122 122] |isbn=978-1-55553-124-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/lincolnsloyalist0000curr/page/122}}</ref> His testimony questioned the legality of Pickett's decision to hang Confederate deserters who had later sided with the Union and put Pickett at risk of prosecution for war crimes.<ref name=":18" />

In his unpublished autobiography, Vance stated that his main reason for supporting the Confederate government was to preserve the institution of slavery.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mobley |first1=Joe A. |date=2000 |title=Zebulon B. Vance: A Confederate Nationalist in the North Carolina Gubernatorial Election of 1864 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23522169 |journal=The North Carolina Historical Review |volume=77 |issue=4 |pages=434–454 |issn=0029-2494 |jstor=23522169}}</ref> Historian Selig Adler wrote, "As war governor, Vance endeared himself forever to his people. He mitigated the horrors of war by insisting on the precedence of civil law, and stoutly protected the state from the uncomfortable militarism of the Confederate government."<ref name=":16" />

=== Governor, 2nd term ===
Vance was reelected as governor in 1864, defeating former supporter, Unionist Democrat, and now peace candidate William Woods Holden.<ref name=":9" />

In early April 1865, General [[William Tecumseh Sherman|William T. Sherman's]] troops neared [[Raleigh, North Carolina]].<ref name=":20">McKinney, Gordon B. "Zebulon Vance and His Reconstruction of the Civil War in North Carolina." ''The North Carolina Historical Review'' 75, no. 1 (1998): 69–85. April 10, 2022.</ref> Vance wrote to Sherman requesting a meeting, hoping to prevent the state's capital city from being pillaged.<ref name=":20" /> He requested safe conduct to discuss North Carolina surrendering to the Union.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gerard |first=Philip |date=April 7, 2015 |title=One Nation, Again After Johnston's Surrender |url=https://www.ourstate.com/johnstons-surrender/ |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=Our State |language=en-US}}</ref> Two of Vance's men met with Sherman; although they did not reach an agreement about ending the war, they did save Raleigh.<ref name=":20" /> Sherman was willing to talk to Vance, but by then Vance had been called to meet with Confederate President [[Jefferson Davis]] and his cabinet in Charlotte, North Carolina.<ref name=":20" /> At that meeting, the Confederate government released Vance from any obligations to defend the Confederacy.<ref name=":20" />[[File:Blandwood_Mansion_West_Parlor.jpg|thumb|[[Blandwood Mansion and Gardens|Blandwood Mansion]]'s west parlor where Vance surrendered]]
On April 26, 1865, Vance learned that Confederate General [[Joseph E. Johnston]] had surrendered his forces to [[William Tecumseh Sherman|Sherman]] at the James Bennett farmhouse near [[Durham, North Carolina]].<ref name=":7" /> On April 28, Vance gave a final proclamation to the people of his state, telling both civilians and soldiers "to retire quietly in their homes, and exert themselves in preserving order".''<ref name=":17" />''<ref>{{Cite news |date=May 9, 1865 |title=From North Carolina |pages=1 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1865/05/09/90121111.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 |access-date=April 13, 2022}}</ref> He then surrendered to General [[John Schofield|John M. Schofield]] in the west parlor of [[Blandwood Mansion and Gardens|Blandwood Mansion]] in [[Greensboro, North Carolina]] on May 2, 1865.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":20" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Briggs |first=Benjamin |date=June 9, 2017 |title=10 Ways Blandwood is NC's Historic Center! |url=https://preservationgreensboro.org/10-ways-blandwood-is-ncs-historic-center/ |access-date=April 13, 2022 |website=Preservation Greensboro Incorporated |language=en-US}}</ref> Schofield accepted Vance's surrender and told him to go to [[Statesville, North Carolina]] where Mrs. Vance and their children were living, as he had no orders for Vance's arrest.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":16" />

Some have said that Vance left Raleigh when it was captured by Sherman and that his house in Statesville was a temporary state capitol.<ref name=":14" /><ref name=":15" /> These claims emerged as part of a political attack against Vance by Republicans during the 1876 governor's race.<ref name=":20" /> There is no evidence that Vance conducted official business in Statesville; rather, it seems he relinquished the office of governor once he left Raleigh.<ref name=":14">{{Cite web |last=Hardy |first=Michael C. |date=May 5, 2015 |title=Statesville: The Last North Carolina State Capital During the War |url=http://michaelchardy.blogspot.com/2015/05/statesville-last-north-carolina-state.html |access-date=July 29, 2022 |website=Looking for the Confederate War}}</ref><ref name=":15">{{Cite web |last=McNally |first=Jim |date=April 11, 2019 |title=Museum holding Civil War Living History Day |url=http://www.statesville.com/news/museum-holding-civil-war-living-history-day/article_ec7381a8-c133-11e3-aca6-0017a43b2370.html |website=Statesville Record & Landmark}}</ref>

On May 29, 1865, William Woods Holden, Vance's former political opponent, was appointed governor of North Carolina by President [[Andrew Johnson]].<ref>Presidential Proclamation No. 38, May 29, 1865, {{USStat|13|760}}</ref>

=== Prisoner ===
Vance was arrested in Statesville on May 13, 1865, his 35th birthday, by General [[Hugh Judson Kilpatrick]].<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":16" /><ref name=":27">{{Cite web |title=Vance, Zebulon |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/vance-zebulon |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=www.encyclopedia.com |publisher=Cengage}}</ref> Samuel Wittkowsky, the man who gave prisoner Vance a wagon ride to the train station, noted that Vance was silently shedding tears at first.<ref name=":30" /> Then, wiping his eyes, Vance expressed concern for his wife and children who had no money to live on and worried about the "indignities" that North Carolina might suffer in the aftermath of the war.<ref name=":30" />

After a short imprisonment in Raleigh, Vance arrived at the [[Old Capitol Prison]] in [[Washington, D.C.]] on May 20, 1865.<ref name=":30" /> There, he shared a small cell with [[John Letcher]], the former [[Governor of Virginia]].<ref name=":17" /> Each man had an iron bed and chair.<ref name=":30" /> They had to pay for their meals which came from a local restaurant.<ref name=":30" /> Vance filed for parole on June 3, 1865, using President [[Andrew Johnson|Johnson]]'s amnesty program.<ref name=":7" /> At the time, Vance's wife was very ill, and Johnson's sympathies lay with reuniting the family.<ref name=":9" /> He paroled Vance on July 6, 1865, after an imprisonment of 47 days.<ref name=":7" /><ref name="docsouth.unc.edu">Barrett, John G. "[http://docsouth.unc.edu/browse/bios/pn0001702_bio.html Zebulon Baird Vance, 13 May 1830–14 Apr. 1894"]. ''Dictionary of North Carolina Biography''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979. {{ISBN|9780807818060}} via Documenting the American South. Retrieved on April 3, 2012.</ref>

Vance was formally pardoned on March 11, 1867; although no formal charges were filed against him before his arrest, during his imprisonment, or during his parole.<ref name="docsouth.unc.edu" />

==Postwar career==

=== Attorney ===
[[File:Zebulon Baird Vance residence in Charlotte, North Carolina.jpg|thumb|Vance's residence in Charlotte, North Carolina in the 19th century]]
After the war, Vance practiced law in Statesville briefly before moving to Charlotte, North Carolina where he formed a practice with Clement Dow and R. D. Johnson.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":9" /><ref name=":20" /> In addition to Charlotte, he had court cases in [[Concord, North Carolina|Concord]], [[Dallas, North Carolina|Dallas]], [[Lexington, North Carolina|Lexington]], [[Lincolnton, North Carolina|Lincolnton]], [[Monroe, North Carolina|Monroe]], and [[Salisbury, North Carolina|Salisbury]].<ref name=":30" /> Among his clients was former Confederate soldier, [[Tom Dula]], who was accused of murdering his girlfriend Laura Foster in 1866.<ref name=":9" /> While he succeeded in having the trial moved from Wilkesboro to Statesville, believing Dula could not receive a fair trial in Wilkes County, Dula was nevertheless convicted and, although he was given a new trial on appeal, Dula was convicted again and hanged on May 1, 1868.<ref name="John Foster Wallace">{{cite book  | last = West  | first = John Foster  | title = The Ballad of Tom Dula: The Documented Story Behind the Murder of Laura Foster  | publisher = Parkway Publishers  |year=2002 | isbn = 1-887905-55-3}}</ref> To the end of his life, Vance maintained that Dula was innocent.<ref name=":9" /> This high–profile murder is the subject of the folk song "[[Tom Dooley (song)|Tom Dooley]]".<ref name=":9" />

=== Fourteenth Amendment ===
Vance and other former Confederates were banned from returning to public office by the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] of 1868.<ref name=":0" /> Vance was depressed during this period and resented this limitation, especially since the same amendment that kept him out of the politics he loved also granted African American men citizenship and full political rights.<ref name=":9" /> Around 1868, he began supporting Conservative Party politicians, using racist dialogue to gain other supporters.<ref name=":9" />

In February 1868, Vance attended the North Carolina Conservation Convention, also called the Rebel Convention, in Raleigh.<ref name=":45">{{Cite news |date=February 7, 1868 |title=The Rebel Pow Wow in Raleigh |pages=2 |work=The Daily Standard |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/87650772/rebel-pow-wow-in-raleigh/ |access-date=December 9, 2022 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref><ref name=":46">{{Cite news |date=February 8, 1868 |title=North Carolina Conservative Convention |pages=1 |work=The Wilmington Morning Star |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/114327843/north-carolina-conservative-convention/ |access-date=December 9, 2022 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> ''The Dailey Standard'' noted that the convention was noteworthy for its hatred of the government and formerly enslaved people.<ref name=":45" /> After many calls from the attendees for him to speak, Vance spontaneously talked about his lack of prejudice toward the formerly enslaved, commending their conduct and fidelity during the war. However, he affirmed his belief that only educated whites should vote in the South.<ref name=":46" />

In 1870, the North Carolina legislature appointed Vance to the United States Senate, but because of the Fourteenth Amendment, he was not eligible to serve unless authorized by a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress.<ref name=":20" /><ref name=":7" /><ref name=":27" /> Vance spent two years unsuccessfully petitioning the Republican-dominated Senate to seat him; he ended up resigning from the appointment.<ref name=":20" /><ref name=":27" /><ref name=":42" />

=== Lecture circuit ===
While he was kept out of politics, Vance earned income in the lecture circuit.<ref name=":11" /> His first important lecture was "The Duties of Defeat" which he gave at the University of North Carolina's commencement on June 7, 1866.<ref name=":16" /> Shortly afterward, he was speaking in venues ranging from county fairs to large lecture halls in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and [[Baltimore]].<ref name=":16" /> By the early 1870s, Vance had a national reputation as an outstanding platform speaker.<ref name=":16" /> His style "was peculiarly his own".<ref name=":16" /> He had a remarkable ability to adapt "to every type of audience using local illustrations and interest, and his keen, sparkling wit... Like Lincoln, Vance was one of the few men who could successfully combine incessant jocularity with seriousness and get credit for seriousness".<ref name=":16" /> Some of his popular speeches were "The Humorous Side of Politics" and "The Demagogue".<ref name=":16" /> He also discussed the aspects of the Civil War in "The Last Days of the War in North Carolina" and "The Political and Social South During the War".<ref name=":16" />

====Speaking out against antisemitism====
Starting around 1870, Vance gave a speech called "[[Scattered Nation]]" hundreds of times, praising Jews and calling for religious tolerance and justice.<ref name=":16" /> Although Vance's motives for "Scattered Nation" are not fully known, it was not for political gain as there were fewer than 500 Jews in North Carolina at the time and [[antisemitism]] was common.<ref name=":16" /> One modern writer suggests Vance's perspective may have been impacted by his involvement with [[Freemasonry]] as this organization accepted Jews.<ref name=":28">{{Cite web |last=Andrea Cooper |date=April 6, 2021 |title=Monument to Confederate governor who loved Jews is coming down in Asheville, NC |url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/monument-to-confederate-governor-who-loved-jews-is-coming-down-in-asheville-nc/ |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=The Times of Israel |language=en-US}}</ref> Historian Leonard Rogoff, president of [[Jewish Heritage North Carolina]], also notes that Vance established a relationship with Samuel Wittkowsky, a Jew and fellow Mason.<ref name=":28" /> When Vance was arrested, he was physically unable to walk to the train station and was only offered a mule by the federal troops; Vance was rescued from this humiliation by Wittkowsky who gave Vance a ride in his wagon.<ref name=":28" /> The two men's later friendship may have impacted Vance's perspective.<ref name=":38" /><ref name=":16" />

Yet, within the "[[Scattered Nation]]" call for tolerance to Jews, Vance also made his prejudices clear, saying, "[In] contrast to the Jews, the 'African negro' had contributed nothing to...the civilization of mankind" and that "laws and partisan courts alike have been used to force [African American men] into an equality with those whom he could not equal."<ref name=":9" />

=== Governor, 3rd term ===
[[File:T 75 1 Zeb Vance (8407660431).jpg|thumb|Vance, {{Circa|1877–1879}} painting in the North Carolina State Archives]]
In 1875, [[Ulysses S. Grant|President Ulysses S. Grant]] signed an amnesty bill that included Vance.<ref name=":9" /> Vance ran for an open seat in the U.S. Senate but lost to [[Augustus Summerfield Merrimon|Augustus Merrimon]].<ref name=":9" /> In 1876, Vance was elected to his third term of Governor as North Carolina.<ref name=":0" /> However, he only served two years of the four-year term.<ref name=":7" /> His swearing-in in 1877 was accompanied by festivities that began a tradition of lavish gubernatorial inaugurations in the state.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.wxii12.com/article/north-carolina-governor-cooper-officials-sworn-covid/35167602| title = North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, state officials sworn in during inauguration ceremony| date = January 9, 2021| website = WXII12| publisher = Hearst Television, Inc.| access-date = January 31, 2023}}</ref>

==== Education ====
As a postwar governor, Vance was considered progressive for his era.<ref name=":8">{{Cite news |last=Walton |first=Beth |date=March 13, 2015 |title=For some, Vance legacy as slaveowner clouds monument |pages=A4 |work=Asheville Citizen-Times |url=https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2015/03/12/vance-monument-history-set-stone/70226886/ |access-date=August 7, 2022 |via=}}</ref> He proposed agricultural reforms, the expansion of teacher training through normal schools, and the addition of more public schools, including separate but equal access for African Americans.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":21">{{Cite web|date=April 2017|title=President's Message – On Legacy Buildings|url=https://www.meckbar.org/?pg=PresidentsMessage&blAction=showEntry&blogEntry=5340|access-date=February 23, 2022|website=Mecklenburg County Bar}}</ref><ref name=":11" /> In his 1877 message to the legislature about creating normal schools, Vance says, "A school of a similar character should be established for the education of colored teachers, the want of which is more deeply felt by the black race even than the white. In addition to the fact that it is our plain duty to make no discrimination in the matter of public education...their desire for education is an extremely credible one, and should be gratified as far as our means will permit. In short, I regard it as an unmistakable policy to imbue these black people with a hearty North Carolina feeling and make them cease to look abroad for the aids to their progress and civilization, and the protection of their rights as they have been taught to do, and teach them to look to their State instead...."<ref name=":30" />

Two years later, his message to the legislature announced that the Board of Education had created two normal schools—a summer institute at the University of North Carolina for white teachers and a new permanent institution, the State Colored Normal School, for black teachers at the Howard School in Fayetteville.<ref name=":30" /><ref name=":32">{{Cite web |title=State Colored Normal School (now Fayetteville State University) |url=https://museum.unc.edu/exhibits/show/segregation/the-state-colored-normal#:~:text=In%201867%2C%20African%20Americans%20established,known%20as%20Fayetteville%20State%20University. |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of University History |publisher=University of North Carolina}}</ref> The State Colored Normal School became [[Fayetteville State University]].<ref name=":32" />

==== Railroads ====
During his third term as governor, Vance brought the railroad to Western North Carolina, finally realizing his dream from the meeting at [[Cumberland Gap, Tennessee|Cumberland Gap]] in 1853.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":36" /> In his first message to the legislature on January 13, 1877, he suggested that convicts should be sent to work on the [[Western North Carolina Railroad]] in [[McDowell County, North Carolina|McDowell County]].<ref name=":36" /> Many of the state's convicts were freed slaves arrested under North Carolina's vagrancy laws which essentially allowed the imprisonment of those without jobs.<ref name=":9" /> Having found a free labor source, Vance then had to resolve a cash shortfall—the State did not have the funds to both equip and transport the convicts.<ref name=":36" /> He turned to J. E. Rankin, chair of the Buncombe County Commission, asking that local elites provide the needed $25,000.<ref name=":36" /> When Rankin sent a negative reply, Vance wrote a heated response.<ref name=":36" /> He then asked the Federal government.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Osment |first=Timothy N. |date=2008 |title=Zebulon Vance |url=https://digitalheritage.org/2010/08/zeb-vance/ |access-date=April 13, 2022 |website=Digital Heritage |publisher=Western Carolina University |language=en-US}}</ref>

Another problem facing Vance was that this railroad was the greatest engineering challenge east of the Rockies, requiring a climb of some {{Convert|1,000|ft|m}} in just over {{Convert|3|mi|km}}.<ref name=":36" /> One modern historian notes that the Blue Ridge railroad project became Vance's "personal crusade."<ref name=":36" /> Despite his ambitious goal of completing the railroad in two years, Vance wanted the convicts to be treated well.<ref name=":36" /> In July 1877, he wrote the Penitentiary Board when he learned that convicts working on both the [[Chester and Lenoir Narrow Gauge Railroad|Chester & Lenoir Narrow Gauge Railroad]] and the [[Spartanburg and Asheville Railroad]] had been subjected to cruel treatment, including being overworked and whipped.<ref name=":36" /> Vance wrote that such conditions were "not to be tolerated for a moment" and requested immediate punishment of those who were guilty of "such disgraceful conduct."<ref name=":36" /> However, the state only provided seven cents a day to feed each convict and the schedule worked the men seven days a week.<ref name=":36" />

Despite Vance's intervention, at least 125 of the 558 convicts died because of inclement weather, inadequate housing, lack of food, and dangerous working conditions such as the cave-ins and accidents at the Swannanoa Tunnel that killed 21 people.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":36" /> Guards also shot men trying to escape.<ref name=":36" /> Historian Gordan McKinney says, "This episode thereby qualifies as one of the most egregious industrial–construction disasters in Appalachian history."<ref name=":36" /> Yet, Vance continued to push for the grueling pace of work.<ref name=":36" />

In his January 1879 address to the legislature, Vance acknowledged some problems with the convict labor program.<ref name=":36" /> However, he never acknowledged his role in the tragedy.<ref name=":36" /> What his voting public remembered was that the new railroad network transported supplies to farms and factories, and then to markets, helping to stimulate the economy across the state.<ref name=":27" />

=== U.S. Senate ===
In 1878, Vance was again elected to the United States Senate where he became a leader of the Democratic Party.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":9" /> Although Vance fought for Southern interests while in the Senate, he showed "little bitterness" towards the North.<ref name=":7" /> As a result, he helped unify Congress which was still struggling with the discord between North and South.<ref name=":27" />

Vance was reelected to the Senate in 1885 and 1891, serving until he died in 1894.<ref name=":7" /> During his tenure, he chaired the committee on enrolled bills, chaired the committee on privileges and elections, served on the joint committee of the library, and served on the finance committee during the [[McKinley Tariff]] debates.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":43">{{Cite news |date=April 17, 1894 |title=Solemn Scene in the Senate |pages=2 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1894/04/17/104108939.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 |access-date=April 13, 2022}}</ref>

==== Criticism of Reconstruction ====
In one of his earliest speeches before the Senate, Vance addressed an array of issues that had arisen during [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]], in support of H.R. 2, which called for the removal of military oversight in Southern elections, the repeal of laws that gave Federal marshals control of Southern elections, and the removal of the requirement for Federal Court jurors to take the oath of allegiance.<ref name=":30" /> Vance said:
<blockquote>Peace then came—no, not peace, but the end of war came—no not the end of war, but the end of legitimate, civilized war, and for three years you dallied with us. One day we were treated as though we were in the Union, and as though we had legitimate State governments in operation; another day, we were treated as though we were out of the Union, and our State governments were rebellious usurpations...You deposed our State governments and ejected from office every official, from Governor to township constable. and remitted us to a state of chaos...You disenfranchised at least ten percent of our citizens, embracing the wisest, best, and most experienced. You enfranchised slaves, the lowest and most ignorant; and you placed them over them as leaders of a class of men who have attained to the highest positions of infamy known to modern ages...
<P>The new governments went to work, and in a short space of four years, they plundered those eleven Southern States to the extent of $262,000,000; that is to say, they took all that we had that was amenable to larceny...It would be well enough for Republican leaders to remember that the inflexible law of compensation exists in politics as well as in other things...If we violate the laws of health we suffer bodily pains or early dissolution; if we violate the laws of society we suffer in public esteem; if we violate the laws of man we are subject to its pains and penalties; if we violate the laws of God, we will suffer the penalties of sin; if we violate the laws of nature we can reap none of the benefits which our knowledge of them now enables us to derive therefrom. So it is in politics....<ref name=":30" /></p></blockquote>
Later on in his speech, Vance asked, "Was it the Union you fought for or political supremacy?"<ref name=":30" /> He pointed out that the nation has benefitted from the leadership of other political parties.<ref name=":30" /> He also said, "To suppose the States are either unable, unwilling, or too corrupt to hold peaceful and honest elections, is to declare unmistakably that the people therein are incapable of self-government...For one, I can say, with unspeakable pride and absolute truth, that the people of North Carolina who sent me here are able, willing, and virtuous enough to fulfill these and all other higher functions of government; that they have ever done so since the keels of [[Walter Raleigh|Raleigh]]'s ships first grated upon the white sands of her shores; and God helping them, they and their children will continue to do so, if not destroyed by centralization..."<ref name=":30" />

Vance also supported the [[Blair Education Bill]] which requested federal funding to help educate the freed slaves in the South.<ref name=":30" /> Although, Vance says, "I admit that there is no special provision in the constitution or perhaps one looking directly toward it for public education. But the men who formed the constitution had no idea that there would be the great civil war that occurred. They had no idea that 500,000 slaves would be liberated by that war, and still less of an idea that the 500,000 slaves would be forced into...absolute equality of citizenship...They had no idea that their institutions and work of their hand would ever be committed to ignorant and unlettered Africans for protection and preservation."<ref name=":30" /> Vance also pointed out North Carolina's successes in creating schools to educate the freed slaves.<ref name=":30" />

In a speech on January 30, 1890, regarding Senate Bill 1121, which authorized people of color to emigrate from Southern states, Vance came close to speaking against slavery, saying, "Those of us in the South who had deprecated the war and deplored the agitation which led to it, as we sat in the ashes of our own homes and scraped ourselves with potsherds of desolation, yet consoled ourselves for the slaughter of our kindred and the devastation of our fields by the reflection that this, at least, was the end; ''that the great original wrong committed by our fathers had at last been atoned for....''"<ref name=":30" /> [emphasis added]

Nonetheless, Vance's racial views showed when he talked about Reconstruction.<ref name=":30" /> He said, "The truth is, he [the former slave] began to prosper when the [Southern] whites took control. Progress for him would have been impossible under his own rule as it was for the whites. Ten more years of such government as reconstruction fixed upon the South would have made the fairest portion of the American continent a wilderness. In short, it would have been Africanized..."<ref name=":30" /> However, Vance was "glad to say that North Carolina is one of the States in the South where there is the least complaint of infringement of the colored man's rights, either at the ballot box or in the courts of justice...That there are instances of mistreatment and occasionally of cruelty to the negros now and then occurring in the South I candidly admit and regret."<ref name=":30" />

Vance also outlined his vision of the future, with a bit of sarcasm:<blockquote>The millennium has not yet arrived in the land of reconstruction; the reign of perfect righteousness, of absolute justice, has not yet been established south of Mason and Dixon's line, though of course, it is in full operation north of that imaginary division. There is no suppression of the popular vote by jerrymander or otherwise; there is no purchase of the floating vote in blocks of five, no ejection of colored children from white schools or colored men from theaters and barbers chairs, and where we may hope that, in the process of time and in the spread of intelligence and increased appreciation for the virtues of the negroes, one black man may soon be sent to Congress from the North; that some railroad attorney or millionaire will make room in the Senate of the United States for the colored brother; that one colored postmaster for a white town may be appointed in the North; that in the State of Kansas, the soil so prolific in friendships for the colored man, a respectable negro, duly nominated on the Republican ticket, may receive the full vote of his party, and not be scratched almost to the point of defeat by those who love him, as he was in Topeka; that one accomplished colored man may be sent abroad to represent his country in some other land than Hayti [''sic]'' or Liberia.<ref name=":30" /></blockquote>In reality, Vance believed in white supremacy.<ref name=":30" /> He said, "I am not only willing but anxious to have justice done them in everything, and to do all that may be required of me to aid them [former slaves] in the difficulties of their position; but I am not willing that they should rule my people."<ref name=":30" />

==== Farmers' Alliance ====
Vance also faced a political challenge with the [[Farmers' Alliance]] in North Carolina.<ref name="Leonard C. Schlup 2003 p 511" /><ref name=":11" /> Some claimed Vance made concessions with this organization to gain reelection to the Senate because the Farmers' Alliance essentially served as a third political party at the time.<ref name=":30" /> On the flip side, Vance was accused of being insincere in his dealings with the Farmers' Alliance, such as introducing a bill on their behalf with no effort made towards getting it passed.<ref name=":30" /> However, from the beginning, Vance tended to side with the masses, including the farming class.<ref name=":30" /> In addition, both Vance and the farmers agreed on the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]].<ref name=":30" />

Furthermore, the organization's origins in North Carolina started with Vance.<ref name=":30" /> Because Vance was against tariffs which he felt enriched the few and impoverished the many, he encouraged North Carolina's farmers to organize so they could collectively defend themselves against outside forces.<ref name=":30" /> Later, he introduced Senate Bill 2806, aka the sub-treasury scheme, at the request of North Carolina's first Commissioner of Agriculture, [[Leonidas L. Polk]], who had become president of the [[National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union]].<ref name=":30" /> However, after investigating the sub-treasury scheme, Vance came to believe that it was both impracticable and unconstitutional.<ref name=":30" />

Although he was not on board for this solution to the farmer's needs, Vance nevertheless praised the Farmer's Alliance in correspondence to its president, noting, "For the past six months there has been more discussion upon the condition of the farmer and matters pertaining to their interests than have taken place within ten years prior. The more of this talk, the better for the farmers. Their wrongs are so palpable that the justice of readdressing them will become more and more irresistible as the light is turned on. The policy of the farmers, being right now, is to keep within the right. Demand nothing that is illegal, ask nothing that is unreasonable."<ref name=":30" /> Vance also hinted that the sub-treasury scheme could be harmful to him and that the farmers should stand by their friend.<ref name=":30" />

When the North Carolina legislature stated that their appointed Senator for the 1891 term should vote for the sub-treasury scheme, Vance "positively and emphatically declined" to agree to be elected under such constraints.<ref name=":30" /> Rather than give up Vance, the legislature reworded their instructions to request that Vance "use all honorable means" to secure financial reforms.<ref name=":30" /> Yet Vance was loath to accept any such conditions.<ref name=":30" /> In a letter written to a member of the legislature on April 1, 1897, [[Thomas Jordan Jarvis|Thomas J. Jarvis]] said, "There is no power on earth that could induce Vance to have accepted an office under conditions which he felt could be justly held to forfeit the affection and high esteem in which he is held to the people of his State."<ref name=":30" />

Vance, who was dealing with poor health at the time, wrote a letter, rather than speaking in public, about the need for Democrats to fight the Republicans who want to limit rights given by the Constitution.<ref name=":30" /> Vance stated that the "situation is most critical" and cautioned against splitting the Democratic Party into two parties as this would only benefit the Republicans.<ref name=":30" /> Vance also reminds everyone, "Since I have been your representative in the Senate I have both spoken and voted against that unjust legislation. At home, as you know, I never ceased to expose inequalities and to advise farmers to organize for resistance to it...My unfaltering confidence is in the true farmers of North Carolina, who as members of the Alliance will, I trust, not permit their noble order and their just cause to be perverted and debased."<ref name=":30" />

==== National issues ====
[[File:The_Administration_sawmill_-_J._Keppler._LCCN2011661379.tif|thumb|"The Administration Sawmill" political cartoon by [[Joseph Keppler]], with Vance at the far left and President Cleveland at the sawmill. From ''[[Puck (magazine)|Puck]]'' magazine, February 1886]]
[[File:Snowed in - J. Keppler. LCCN2011661375.tif|thumb|"Snowed In" political cartoon by [[Joseph Keppler]] showing a snowstorm depositing silver coins at the Capitol and the Department of Treasury with Vance and others gathering coins for a snowball fight. From ''[[Puck (magazine)|Puck]]'' magazine, January 1886.]]
In national politics, Vance generally supported conservative President [[Grover Cleveland]].<ref name="Leonard C. Schlup 2003 p 511" /><ref name=":11" /> He made a speech in North Carolina saying:<blockquote>Many of our people, it is true, have objected to Mr. Cleveland and preferred that he should not have been nominated. I confess that I was among that number. But an individual preference before the nomination of a candidate is one thing and the duty of a true man after that nomination has been fairly made is another and very different thing indeed...If we refuse to abide by the voice of the majority of our fellow Democrats, freely and unmistakably expressed in friendly convention, there is an end of all associated party effort in the government of our country; if we personally participate in that...convention and then refuse to abide by the decision of its tribunal...then there is an end of all personal honor among all men, and the confidence which is necessary to all combined efforts is forever gone.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Battle |first=George Gordon |date=September 28, 1928 |title=A War Governor's View |page=20 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1928/09/28/95624955.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 |access-date=April 13, 2022}}</ref></blockquote>Vance opposed important legislation of the era such as the [[McKinley Tariff]], civil service programs, the internal revenue service, and the repeal of the [[Sherman Silver Purchase Act]]—gaining a reputation as an opposition senator.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":24" /> Vance was also against capitalistic monopolies and the government purchasing railroads and telegraph lines, as well as a monopoly by national banks.<ref name=":30" /><ref name=":42" /> However, he did not believe railroads or other non-government entities should be allowed to own more public land than was needed for their primary function.<ref name=":30" />

Vance supported increasing the volume of currency and silver coinage; at the time, the amount of paper and coin money released could not exceed the gold in the treasury.<ref name=":30" /> Vance made his last speech in the Senate on September 1, 1893, speaking against House Bill 1, regarding the unconditional repeal of the [[Sherman Silver Purchase Act]] that was approved in 1890.<ref name=":30" /> Although noticeably weakened from illness, Vance spoke for two hours and gave what many consider the best speech of his career.<ref name=":30" /> Early in the speech, Vance simply explains, "When money is abundant prices are high; when money is scarce the prices of all products are low. Therefore, he that increases the abundance of money benefits the production and enhances prices and wages, and he that contracts or diminishes the amount of this money depreciates everything which is for sale, including wages...The effect upon the well-being of mankind which would follow the destruction of one-half of this currency—it is impossible to accurately describe."<ref name=":30" />

== Vance and the Ku Klux Klan ==
Following the Civil War, the [[Ku Klux Klan]] (KKK) emerged as an organization that engaged in terrorism and intimidation throughout the South, including North Carolina.<ref name=":9">{{Cite web |title=Zebulon Vance |url=https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/zebulon-b-vance-birthplace/history/zebulon-vance |access-date=February 21, 2022 |website=North Carolina Historic Sites}}</ref> Modern detractors and some modern biographers claim that Vance was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Burgess |first=Joel |title=Asheville Confederate Vance Monument to be 'replaced' by George Floyd hologram; Task force appointed |url=https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2020/07/29/asheville-confederate-vance-monument-replaced-george-floyd-hologram-change-org/5537575002/ |access-date=August 7, 2022 |website=The Asheville Citizen-Times |language=en-US}}</ref>

The first known source to connect the two is an affidavit from Thomas A. Hope of [[Lincoln County, North Carolina]], submitted to the US Congress's Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, which published its report in 1872.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last1=United States. Congress.|url=http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/metabook?id=insurrection1872|title=Report of the Joint select committee appointed to inquire into the condition of affairs in the late insurrectionary states, so far as regards the execution of laws, and the safety of the lives and property of the citizens of the United States and Testimony taken.|last2=Poland|first2=Luke P.|last3=Scott|first3=John|publisher=Government Printing Office|year=1872|volume=2|location=Washington, D.C.|page=400|language=en}}</ref> In his affidavit, Hope states, "[I] frequently heard it talked among the KKK members that Z. B. Vance was the chief of the State; do not know this of my own knowledge, have only heard it talked of."<ref name=":3" />

In her 1924 self-published book, ''Authentic History Ku Klux Klan, 1865–1877,'' [[Susan Lawrence Davis]] states that Vance was the [[Grand dragon|Grand Dragon]] of the Ku Klux Klan for North Carolina''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Davis|first=Susan Lawrence|url=https://archive.org/details/authentichistor00davi/page/n1/mode/2up|title=Authentic History of the Ku Klux Klan, 1865–1877|publisher=Susan Lawrence Davis|year=1924|location=New York, New York|pages=292|language=en}}</ref>'' Davis had a history of fakery and appears to have plagiarized a 1906 historical romance novel by [[Thomas Dixon Jr.]] when writing her nonfiction Klan history.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|last=Kühner|first=Wilhelm|date=January 16, 2021|title=Susan Lawrence Davis's "authentic history" of the Reconstruction Klan|url=https://medium.com/k%C3%BChner-kommentar/susan-lawrence-daviss-authentic-history-of-the-reconstruction-klan-e5717b1c6711|access-date=February 22, 2022|website=Kühner Kommentar an Amerika|language=en}}</ref>''<ref name=":0" />'' Modern experts note other discrepancies in ''Authentic History'', including fabricated descriptions of Klan costumes, giving reason to question any claims she made about Vance.<ref name=":2" />

However, Davis's report of Vance's association with the Klan is repeated in many credible books in the 20th century, such as historian [[Stanley Horn|Stanly Fitzgerald Horn]]'s ''Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan, 1866–1871.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last=Horn|first=Stanley Fitzgerald|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rox3AAAAMAAJ|title=Invisible Empire: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan, 1866–1871|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|year=1939|pages=1939|isbn=9781404749108 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>'' Horne writes, "Ex-Governor Zebulon Baird Vance was generally supposed to be the Grand Dragon of the Realm, and the testimony of the confessed Ku Klux was to the effect that within the Klan Vance was generally looked upon as the chief of state."<ref name=":4" />

In the 2004 biography, ''Zeb Vance: North Carolina's Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader,'' Gordon McKinney writes that Vance did publicly discuss the KKK in 1870 after a series of Ku Klux Klan incidents in [[Orange County, North Carolina]].<ref name=":5">{{Cite book|last=McKinney|first=Gordan|title=Zeb Vance: North Carolina's Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader|publisher=The University of North Carolina Press|year=2004|isbn=978-1-4696-0731-3|location=Chapel Hill|pages=287–288|language=en}}</ref> The statement issued by Vance reads: "I opposed the Ku Klux from the start...refusing to have anything to do with such an organization on the grounds that it was a secret society...I not only refused to approve of it but made a speech in a certain county against such organizations."<ref name=":5" />

Similarly, in a review of Vance's writings of the era, historian Milton Ready notes, "[Vance] embraced the racial stereotypes of the time that deemed newly freed blacks inferior. Yet he loathed the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan, condemning its members as cowards and 'ruffians,' its intimidating methods as unlawful."<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|last=Ready|first=Milton|date=June 25, 2015|title=When past is present: Zeb Vance and his monument|work=Mountain Xpress|url=https://mountainx.com/opinion/when-past-is-present-zeb-vance-and-his-monument/|access-date=February 21, 2022}}</ref>

Regardless of what Vance was writing or saying, historian Joe T. Mobley says it is important to consider Vance's "acquiescence to the violence of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction."<ref>Mobley, J. A. (2005). [http://www.jstor.org/stable/23523249 Review of ''Zeb Vance: North Carolina's Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader'']''r'', by G. B. McKinney]. ''The North Carolina Historical Review'', ''82''(1), 93</ref> Vance also capitalized on "the tension created by the Klan in the mountain region to help the Conservatives sweep the western counties."<ref name=":9" />

== Personal life ==
[[File:Harriett Espy Vance, wife of Zebulon Baird Vance.jpg|thumb|Harriett Espy Vance, 1878]]
[[File:Florence Steele Martin, Zebulon Vance's second wife.jpg|thumb|Florence Steele Martin Vance]]
[[File:Zebulon_Baird_Vance_residence_Gombroom,_Black_Mountain,_North_Carolina.jpg|thumb|Gombroom, [[Black Mountain, North Carolina]] in the 19th–century]]
Around 1851, Vance began to court [[Harriett Newell Espy Vance|Harriett "Hattie" Newell Espy]], the orphaned daughter of Presbyterian minister Robert Espy.<ref name=":16" /><ref name=":39" /> After he had passed the Bar and started a law practice, Vance married Harriett at [[Quaker Meadows]], the home of her uncle [[Charles McDowell (North Carolina militiaman)|Charles McDowell]] in [[Burke County, North Carolina]] on August 3, 1853.<ref name="nrhpinv">{{Cite web |author=Survey and Planning Unit |date=August 1973 |title=Quaker Meadows |url=https://files.nc.gov/ncdcr/nr/BK0010.pdf |access-date=August 1, 2014 |work=National Register of Historic Places – Nomination and Inventory |publisher=North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office}}</ref><ref name=":39" /> They had five sons: Robert Espy Vance (born 1854, died young), Charles Noel Vance (born 1856), David Mitchell Vance (born 1857), Zebulon Baird Vance Jr. (born 1860), and Thomas Malvern Vance (born 1862).<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":9" /> The family lived on a {{Convert|5|acre|m2}} lot in Asheville, North Carolina, purchased for $2,300 which came from Hattie's dowry.<ref name=":39" /> Vance enslaved six people—Isaac, Julia, Hannah, Marion, and two unnamed children—who cleaned the house, cooked, maintained the garden, did laundry, and helped rear the Vance children.<ref name=":9" />

Vance joined the Mt. Hermon Lodge No. 118 [[Ancient Free and Accepted Masons]] in Asheville, reaching the degree of Master Mason on June 20, 1853.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Masonic Apron of Zebulon Baird Vance |url=http://www.greensboromasonicmuseum.org/collection-details/masonic-apron-of-zebulon-baird-vance.html |access-date=April 11, 2022 |website=Greensboro Mason Museum |language=en}}</ref> When he moved to Charlotte after the Civil War, Vance attended Phalanx Lodge No. 31.<ref name=":34">{{Cite web |title=Excelsior Masonic Lodge: Charlotte, NC Freemasonry |url=http://excelsiorlodge261.org/temp/Excelsior.php |access-date=April 11, 2022 |website=Excelsior Lodge:261}}</ref> That lodge quickly grew in size with Vance's membership.<ref name=":34" /> In 1867, Vance co-founded the Excelsior Lodge No. 261 as the second lodge in Charlotte with Samuel Wittkowsky.<ref name=":34" /> However, Excelsior Lodge records show Vance as "Resident Mason—Not Member."<ref name=":34" />

Vance was also one of the nineteen original stakeholders in the Asheville Cemetery Company which purchased land and hired landscape architect [[Charles T. Colyer]] to create [[Riverside Cemetery (Asheville, North Carolina)|Riverside Cemetery]].<ref name=":26" /> In return, Vance received twenty grave plots and his choice of location within the cemetery.<ref name=":26" />

Vance donated to keep the University of North Carolina operating.<ref name=":26" /> In 1875 when the university reopened after the war, he was asked to be its president, following in the footsteps of former [[David Lowry Swain|Governor David Lowry Swain]].<ref name=":30" /><ref name=":26" /> However, Vance declined the offer.<ref name=":26" /> He said, "No, say to my friends that it would kill me in a few weeks to be obliged to behave as is required for a college president in order to furnish an example to the boys."<ref name=":30" /> He was a member of the [[Southern Historical Society]], serving as its vice-president of North Carolina around 1873.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 18., The Southern Historical Society: its origin and history. |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2001.05.0276:chapter=23 |access-date=August 28, 2022 |website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>

In February 1865, Vance had a stroke that caused temporary paralysis and "the muscles of the left cheek and eye to occasionally jerk and twitch...."<ref name=":9" /> In October 1878, the Vances moved into a residence on Fayetteville Street in Raleigh, the former home of [[Kemp P. Battle]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=October 28, 1878 |title=Gov. Zebulon B. Vance's New Home |page=4 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1878/10/28/88162993.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 |access-date=April 13, 2022}}</ref> Vance joined the church for the first time at the age of 48, choosing his wife's Presbyterian church.<ref name=":44">Johnston, Frontis W. "Zebulon Baird Vance: A Personality Sketch." ''The North Carolina Historical Review'' 30, no. 2 (1953): 178–90. {{JSTOR|23516187}}.</ref> However, his wife Harriett died on November 3, 1878, after a long and painful illness, just one month after the death of Vance's mother.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":30" /> A train took Harriett's remains back to Asheville to be buried at Riverside Cemetery.<ref name=":30" /><ref name=":26" />

On January 21, 1880, Vance met [[Florence Steele Martin Vance|Florence Steele Martin]] while attending a ball at the Riggs House hotel in Washington, D.C.<ref name=":37">Johnston, Frontis W. "The Courtship of Zeb Vance." ''The North Carolina Historical Review'' 31, no. 2 (1954): 222–239, April 12, 2022. {{JSTOR|23516704}}.</ref> Martin was a wealthy Catholic widow from [[Louisville, Kentucky]], with a twelve-year-old son.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":16" /> When she returned home three weeks later, the two were engaged.<ref name=":37" /> Based on the more than 100 letters Vance sent her over the next four months, this was a love match.<ref name=":37" /> Vance told a friend that Mrs. Martin was perfect for him except for her religion.<ref name=":16" /> He wrote, "Think of it! What ''will'' my Presbyterian friends say to me?"<ref name=":16" /> In reality, there were legitimate concerns that her religion could negatively impact his political career, but Vance was not deterred.<ref name=":37" /> They married on June 17, 1880, some six months after meeting, in [[Oldham County, Kentucky]] at the home of her mother, Mrs. Samuel Steele.<ref>{{Cite news |date=June 18, 1880 |title=Senator Vance Married |pages=1 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1880/06/18/98905958.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 |access-date=April 13, 2022}}</ref> They did not have any children.<ref name=":7" />

The couple lived at 1627 Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., but also started building a house called Gombroom in [[Black Mountain, North Carolina]].<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":42" /> To fund Gombroom, Vance used his wife's money and sold land in downtown Asheville that he inherited from his mother.<ref name=":9" /> Vance was embarrassed that his new wife had more money than he did.<ref name=":37" /> Weeks before their wedding, he wrote her, "Tell them [her family] the simple truth about me Darling, as I told it to you—that I am a poor man & ever likely to be. You may boast of nothing for me except my love for you. ...I do hope they will all learn to love me."<ref name=":37" /> Nevertheless, Gombroon was completed in 1887 and became their main home when Vance's health declined.<ref name=":9" /> Surrounded by forests, it was "the ideal retreat in the mountains of North Carolina" and had gardens, orchards, and vineyards, along with a dairy, springhouse, and other outbuildings.<ref name=":30" />

In 1890, at the age of sixty, Vance gave more speeches than in any other year of his life.<ref name=":30" /> His nervous affliction from his previous stroke became worse, and back in Black Mountain, he fell from a wagon.<ref name=":30" /> His doctors feared he would go blind if they did not surgically remove one eye to save the other.<ref name=":30" /> The surgery was performed in early 1891, but he never returned to full health.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":9" /> Vance told [[William B. Bate]], whom he sat next to in the Senate, "Misfortunes have their blessings, for surely no man can now deny that I have an eye single to the interests of my constituents."<ref>{{Cite news |date=January 26, 1895 |title=Zebulon B. Vance's Pluck |pages=6 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1895/01/26/102445233.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 |access-date=April 13, 2022}}</ref>

In a kindness not always seen by political opponents, the entire Senate voted to pay for a private secretary for Vance from their contingency funds.<ref name=":30" /> However, Vance's health continued to decline from 1890 through 1894.<ref name=":9" /> As travel was believed to be curative in the 19th century, he visited Egypt, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Scotland.<ref name=":30" /> Vance told his son that he "was home-sick while abroad and that the trip had made him a better American."<ref name=":30" /> In January 1894, he visited [[Jacksonville, Florida|Jacksonville]], [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]], [[St. Augustine, Florida|St. Augustine]], and [[Suwannee Springs]] in Florida while the Senate was in session.<ref name=":30" /><ref name=":42" /> When he returned to Washington, D.C. in April 1894, he could no longer walk.<ref name=":9" />

===Death and funeral===
On April 14, 1894, Vance had another stroke, went into a coma, and died at his home in Washington, D.C.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":7" />

Services were held in the Senate chamber on April 16, 1894, which were attended by [[Grover Cleveland|President Grover Cleveland]], Vice President [[Adlai Stevenson I|Adlai Stevenson]], Chief Justice of the Supreme Court [[Melville Fuller]] and all but one of the associate justices, Secretary of State [[Walter Q. Gresham]], Secretary of the Treasury [[John G. Carlisle]], Attorney General [[Richard Olney]], Post Master General [[Wilson S. Bissell]], Secretary of the Navy [[Hilary A. Herbert]], Secretary of the Interior [[M. Hoke Smith]], Secretary of Agriculture [[Julius Sterling Morton]], the Speaker of the House [[Charles Frederick Crisp]], and members of both the House of Representatives and Senate.<ref name=":30" /><ref name=":43" /> The ambassador from England [[Julian Pauncefote, 1st Baron Pauncefote|Sir Julian Paunceforte]], other members of the diplomatic corps, and Bishop [[John J. Keane (bishop)|John J. Keane]] of [[Catholic University of America|Catholic University]] also attended.<ref name=":30" /><ref name=":43" /> For the service, Vance's desk and chair were draped in black, and the floral decorations included pine to represent North Carolina.<ref name=":43" /> The service was followed by a funeral procession to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station.<ref name=":30" />

Next, a funeral train took Vance's body to Raleigh, North Carolina for another service, and from there to [[Asheville, North Carolina]] for burial.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":23" /> He was accompanied by seven congressmen ([[John S. Henderson]], [[William T. Crawford]], and [[Sydenham Benoni Alexander|Sydenham B. Alexander]] of North Carolina; [[John C. Black]] of Illinois; [[Elijah V. Brookshire]] of Indiana; [[Luther M. Strong]] of Ohio; and [[Charles Daniels (New York politician)|Charles Daniels]] of New York), six senators ([[Matt Whitaker Ransom|Matt W. Ransom]] of North Carolina, [[James Z. George]] of Mississippi, [[George Gray (Delaware politician)|George Gray]] of Delaware, [[Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn]] of Kentucky, [[Fred Dubois|Fred DuBois]] of Idaho, and [[William E. Chandler]] of New Hampshire), the [[Secretary of the Senate]] [[William Ruffin Cox]], and family members.<ref name=":30" /> In Raleigh, the group was joined by Governor [[Elias Carr]], former Governor Thomas Jordan Jarvis, [[North Carolina Attorney General]] [[Frank I. Osborne]], state North Railroad Commissioner James W. Wilson, [[North Carolina Secretary of State]] [[Octavius Coke]], [[North Carolina State Treasurer|State Treasurer]] [[Samuel McDowell Tate]], [[Auditor of North Carolina]] R. M. Furman, Judge [[Alphonso Calhoun Avery]] of the [[North Carolina Supreme Court]], Richard Henry Battle who was Vance's personal secretary during his governorship, former North Carolina. Attorney General [[Thomas Kenan (Civil War)|Thomas S. Kenan]], ''[[The News & Observer]]'' owner [[Josephus Daniels]], [[Edward J. Hale]] of ''[[The Fayetteville Observer]],'' and many others.<ref name=":30" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Mitchell |first=Memory F. |date=1979 |title=Battle, Richard Henry |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/battle-richard-henry |access-date=April 13, 2022 |website=NCpedia}}</ref>

Thousands of people lined the railroad tracks "to pay their last respects to one whom they loved and admired very much" as the funeral train headed south and west and stopped at towns and cities such as [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]], [[Danville, Virginia|Danville]], [[Greensboro, North Carolina|Greensboro]], [[Durham, North Carolina|Durham]], and Raleigh.<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":9" /><ref name=":30" /> Thousands passed through the railroad car to pay their respects, filling it with a variety of flowers.<ref name=":30" /> Once the train arrived in Asheville, there were funeral services at First Presbyterian Church.<ref name=":9" /> Surviving members of Vance's Rough and Ready Guard led a procession of 710 carriages from the church to Riverside Cemetery where nearly 10,000 mourners attended his funeral and burial, including people he formerly enslaved.<ref name=":9" /><ref name="docsouth.unc.edu" /><ref name=":23" /> In 1890, the total population of Asheville was 10,235.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

In his eulogy, former Governor Thomas Jordan Jarvis said, "He was the [[Mount Mitchell]] of all our great men, and in the affections and love of the people, he towered above them all. As ages to come will not be able to mar the grandeur and greatness of Mount Mitchell, so they will not be able to efface from the hearts and minds of the people the name of their beloved Vance."<ref>{{cite book |author=United States. Congress |url=https://archive.org/details/memorialaddress47conggoog |title=Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Zebulon Baird Vance: (late a Senator from North Carolina) Delivered in the Senate and House of Representatives, Fifty-third Congress, Third Session |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |year=1895 |page=[https://archive.org/details/memorialaddress47conggoog/page/n97 86]}}</ref>

Vance was buried by his first wife, Harriett, in Riverside Cemetery in the Vance family plot.<ref name=":26" /> Later, his second wife Florence had Vance moved to a grave in her family's plot in Riverside Cemetery.<ref name=":26" /> Vance's children, who were all born to his first wife, successfully petitioned to court to return Vance to his original burial site.<ref name=":26" /> Thus, Vance was buried three times in the same cemetery.<ref name=":26" />

At the time of his death, Vance had $152.07 in the bank; when his effects and property were sold, his estate totaled less than $5,000.<ref name=":37" />

== Honors ==
[[File:Zebulon Baird Vance by Henry Jackson Ellicott - DSC05834.JPG|thumb|Vance statue by [[Henry Jackson Ellicott]], [[Raleigh, North Carolina]]]]
[[File:Flickr - USCapitol - Zebulon Baird Vance Statue.jpg|thumb|Vance statue by [[Gutzon Borglum]], [[National Statuary Hall]]]]
[[File:Zebulon Vance's Birthplace.jpg|thumb|Reconstruction of the cabin at the [[Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace]] State Historic Site]]
In 1953, Frontis W. Johnston wrote, "North Carolina has loved, idolized, and rewarded no other man in her history as she has Zebulon Baird Vance."<ref name=":44" /> Johnston also states that North Carolina's towns "swarmed with literally hundreds of little Zebulons."<ref name=":44" />

There are several monuments and memorials dedicated to Vance:
* The [[Salem College]] Chapel contains a stained-glass window given in honor of Vance by the Class of 1894.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rettig |first=Polly M |date=June 15, 1976 |title=Old Salem Historic District: National Historic Landmark Nomination |url=https://files.nc.gov/ncdcr/nr/FY0009.pdf |access-date=April 9, 2022 |website=NC.gov |page=54}}</ref>
* The [[Zebulon Baird Vance Monument|Vance Monument]], a {{Convert|75|ft|m}} granite [[obelisk]] was dedicated in Asheville, North Carolina in 1897 (demolished May 2021).<ref name=":9" /><ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=May 18, 2021 |title=Group files appeal after lawsuit to block Vance Monument's removal dismissed by judge |url=https://my40.tv/news/local/group-files-appeal-after-lawsuit-to-block-vance-monuments-removal-dismissed-by-judge |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=WMYA |language=en}}</ref>
* A statue of Vance by [[Henry Jackson Ellicott]] was dedicated on the grounds of the [[North Carolina State Capitol]] in Raleigh on August 22, 1900.<ref name=":40">{{Cite web |date=March 19, 2010 |title=Zebulon Vance Statue, Raleigh |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/commland/monument/103/ |access-date=April 13, 2022 |website=Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina |publisher=DocSouth, University of North Carolina |language=en}}</ref> It was moved from its original pedestal and relocated to Raleigh's Union Square in 1949.<ref name=":40" />
* A bronze statue of Vance by [[Gutzon Borglum]] was added to the [[National Statuary Hall|National Statuary Hall Collection]] in Washington, D.C. in 1916.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Zebulon Vance Statue, U.S. Capitol for North Carolina |url=https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/zebulon-vance-statue |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=Architect of the Capital (AOC)}}</ref>
* A small monument is located where his post-war home once stood at Sixth and College Streets, in Charlotte, North Carolina.{{citation needed|date= January 2023}}
* The Asheville Lodge of the [[B'nai B'rith]] dedicated a memorial plaque to Vance at Calvary Episcopal Church in [[Fletcher, North Carolina]] on October 14, 1928.<ref name=":38">Epstein, Seth. 2019. "From Objects to Agents of Tolerance: Jews and Tolerance Talk in Asheville, North Carolina, 1894–1954." ''North Carolina Historical Review'' 96 (3): 305–40. via EBSCO. Accessed April 12, 2022.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Rabbi Wise Eulogizes Zebulon Baird Vance |pages=23 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1928/10/15/91717266.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 |access-date=April 13, 2022}}</ref> The plaque is mounted on a large granite boulder that is part of the [[Open–Air Westminster Abbey of the South]].<ref name=":38" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=March 19, 2010 |title=Open Air Westminster of the South, Calvary Episcopal Church, Fletcher |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/commland/monument/751/ |access-date=April 13, 2022 |website=Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina |publisher=DocSouth, University of North Carolina |language=en}}</ref>

Several locations, schools, and more bear Vance's name:
* [[Vance County, North Carolina]] was named in his honor in 1881.<ref name=":9" />
* The town of [[Zebulon, North Carolina|Zebulon]], in [[Wake County, North Carolina]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=History of Zebulon – Zebulon Chamber of Commerce |url=http://zebulonchamber.org/history/ |access-date=April 9, 2022 |language=en-US}}</ref>
* The town of [[Vanceboro, North Carolina|Vanceboro]] in [[Craven County, North Carolina]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=About Our Town |url=https://www.vanceboronc.com/about-our-town |access-date=April 9, 2022 |website=Town of Vanceboro |language=en}}</ref>
* The [[World War II]] United States [[liberty ship]] ''[[SS Zebulon B. Vance]]''<ref>{{cite web |last1=Warren |first1=Harry |date=2006 |title=Zebulon B. Vance, USS |url=https://www.ncpedia.org/zebulon-b-vance-uss |access-date=December 27, 2017 |website=NCpedia}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=November 23, 1941 |title=North Carolina Yard to Launch Freighter |page=54 |work=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/11/23/105166487.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0 |access-date=April 13, 2022}}</ref>
* Kerr-Vance Academy in [[Henderson, North Carolina]]<ref name=":47">{{Cite journal |last=Holmes |first=C. Scott |last2=O'Rouke-Owens |first2=Amelia |date=2022 |title=Trespassing on White Supremacy: The Legacy of Establishment White Supremacy in North Carolina |url=https://northcarolinalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2022/05/HolmesORourke_FinalforPrint.pdf |journal=North Carolina Law Review |volume=100 |page=165 |quote=See footnote 103.}}</ref>
* [[Northern Vance High School]] in Henderson, North Carolina<ref name=":47" />
* Vance Charter School in Henderson, North Carolina<ref name=":47" />
* Vance County Early College High School in Henderson, North Carolina<ref name=":48">{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=A census of Confederate symbols and monuments in the U.S. |url=https://data.knoxnews.com/confederate-monuments/?page=61&searchtext=all |access-date=May 12, 2023 |website=Knoxville News Sentinel |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":47" />
* [[Vance County High School]] in Henderson, North Carolina<ref name=":48" />
* Vance County Middle School  in Henderson, North Carolina<ref name=":48" />
* Vance Elementary in Asheville, North Carolina (name changed in February 2021).<ref name=":33">{{Cite web |date=February 2, 2021 |title=Asheville City Schools Renames Vance Elementary |url=https://www.bpr.org/news/2021-02-02/asheville-city-schools-renames-vance-elementary |access-date=April 11, 2022 |website=Blueridge Public Radio |language=en}}</ref>
* Vance Hall at the [[University of North Carolina at Asheville]] (name changed in 2020).<ref name=":29">{{Cite web |date=August 28, 2020 |title=UNC Asheville Board of Trustees Passes Resolution to Rename Vance and Hoey Halls, Calls for Task Force to Study and Review Names of All Campus Buildings |url=https://www.unca.edu/events-and-news/stories/board-of-trustees-resolution-rename-vance-and-hoey-halls/ |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=News And Events {{!}} UNC Asheville |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":48" />
* Vance Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill <ref>{{Cite web |title=Zebulon B. Vance (1830–1894) and Vance Hall |url=https://museum.unc.edu/exhibits/show/names/vance-hall |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=Names Across the Landscape: Carolina Story: Virtual Museum of University History |publisher=University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill}}</ref>
* [[Vance High School|Zebulon B. Vance High School]] in [[Charlotte, North Carolina]] (name changed on October 13, 2020).<ref name=":10">{{Cite web |title=Vance High School renamed for Julius L. Chambers |url=https://www.cms.k12.nc.us/News/Pages/Vance-High-School-renamed-for-Julius-L.-Chambers.aspx |access-date=April 9, 2022 |website=Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools |language=en-US}}</ref>
* Zeb Vance Elementary School in [[Kittrell, North Carolina]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Zeb Vance Elementary |url=https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/north-carolina/zeb-vance-elementary-226111 |access-date=April 9, 2022 |website=U.S. News & World Report}}</ref><ref name=":48" />
* Zeb Vance High School in [[Vance County, North Carolina]] (now closed).<ref>{{Citation |last=Leatherberry |first=Earl |title=North Carolina, Vance County, Zeb Vance School (974) |date=June 1, 1995 |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/23711298@N07/6997314856/ |publication-date=June 1995 |access-date=April 11, 2022}}</ref>
There are many historic markers and historic sites about Vance:
* The Vance Birthplace is a State Historic Site in Weaverville, North Carolina.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Vance Birthplace {{!}} NC Historic Sites |url=https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/vance-birthplace |access-date=August 7, 2022 |website=historicsites.nc.gov}}</ref>
* The Historic Vance House and Civil War Museum is located in Statesville, North Carolina in his former residence.<ref>{{cite web |title=Vance House, Marker-25 |url=https://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=M-25 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190215050553/https://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=M-25 |archive-date=February 15, 2019 |access-date=February 14, 2019 |website=NC Markers}}</ref>
* The "Zeb Vance House" North Carolina State Highway Historical Marker is in Statesville, North Carolina.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Marker: M-25: Vance House |url=http://ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=M-25 |access-date=April 9, 2022 |website=North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources}}</ref>
* The "Zebulon B. Vance" North Carolina State Highway Historical Marker is in Buncombe County, North Carolina.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Marker: P-2: Zebulon B. Vance |url=http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=P-2 |access-date=April 9, 2022 |website=North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources}}</ref>
* The "Camp Vance" North Carolina State Highway Historical Marker is near [[Morganton, North Carolina]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Marker: N-17: Camp Vance |url=http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=N-17 |access-date=August 7, 2022 |website=North Carolina Markers |publisher=North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources}}</ref>
* The "Brothers in Service" Civil War Trails marker in Weaverville, North Carolina is about Vance and his brother Robert.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Marker: Brothers in service: Zebulon and Robert Vance birthplace |url=https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p15012coll8/id/10928 |access-date=April 13, 2022 |website=North Carolina Digital Collections |publisher=North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources |language=en}}</ref>
Several organizations bear his name:
* Vance Masonic Lodge A.F.&A.M. No. 293 in Weaverville, North Carolina
* The Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp No. 15 is called the Zebulon Baird Vance Camp<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sons of Confederate Veterans - 0015 Zebulon Baird Vance Camp |url=https://www.causeiq.com/organizations/sons-of-confederate-veterans-0015-zebulon-baird-va,561251168/ |access-date=April 12, 2022 |website=Cause IQ}}</ref>
* Vance Policy Institute think tank for Asheville and Buncombe County<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Millard |first=Hal L. |date=December 4, 2007 |title=What the world needs now is another think tank |url=https://mountainx.com/news/community-news/what_the_world_needs_now_is_another_think_tank/ |journal=Mountain Xpress}}</ref>
* The Zeb Vance Ruritan Club in [[Kittrell, North Carolina]]<ref>{{Cite web |date=September 30, 2015 |title=Zeb Vance Ruritan Club Presents Dictionaries Over School Broadcast |url=https://www.dictionaryproject.org/2015/09/zeb-vance-ruritan-club-presents-dictionaries-over-school-broadcast/ |access-date=April 13, 2022 |website=The Dictionary Project |language=en-US}}</ref>
* The Henderson, North Carolina chapter of the [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]] is the Zeb Vance Chapter<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=3mxUAAAAYAAJ Minutes of the 7th Annual] Meeting of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Nashville: Press of Foster & Webb, 1901. p. 87. Via Google Books. Accessed April 13, 2022.</ref>
* The United Confederate Veterans Camp No. 681 was called the Zebulon Vance Camp in his honor.<ref>{{Cite news |date=December 29, 1896 |title=Sons of Veterans Invited |pages=4 |work=The Asheville Weekly Citizen |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/99712793/ |access-date=April 14, 2022 |via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}</ref>
* Vance County Schools in Henderson, North Carolina<ref name=":48" />
Also, on January 19, 1895, the United States Senate opened its floor for orations in his honor.<ref name=":30" />

== Legacy ==
About Vance, F. Lane Williamson wrote, "Did he moderate his racial views in later years? Perhaps, but who knows? It's fair to say, though, that his legacy is that he set the stage for North Carolina to be perceived as at least somewhat more racially tolerant and culturally progressive than its Deep South neighbors, a tradition that held through the 20th–century and beyond until quite recently."<ref>"[https://www.meckbar.org/?pg=PresidentsMessage&blAction=showEntry&blogEntry=5340 President's Message – On Legacy Buildings"]. ''Mecklenburg County Bar''. April 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2022.</ref>

Samuel Wittkowsky, a Jewish intimate of Vance, wrote, "I speak for my race in North Carolina...the deceased has even by his words and writings demonstrated that he was their friend. His lecture on the Scattered Nation will ever remain green in the memory of my race, and will be one of the brightest jewels in his ever-liberal, fair, and untarnished escutcheon. And I venture the assertion that in the history of North Carolina, no Israelite has cast a vote against Z. B. Vance."<ref name=":16" /> Annually on Vance's birthday for more than 75 years, the Jewish organization, [[B'nai B'rith]], and the [[United Daughters of the Confederacy]] held a joint ceremony and laid a [[galax]] wreath at the Vance Monument in Asheville.<ref name=":16" /> This event began in the late 1930s was discontinued in the early 2000s.<ref name=":28" /><ref name=":38" />

In 2004, author [[Sharyn McCrumb]] wrote the novel ''Ghost Riders'' with a fictionalized account of Vance's life told in the first person.<ref>{{Cite web |date=July 2004 |title=Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-525-94718-9 |access-date=August 7, 2022 |website=Publishers Weekly}}</ref> She was also inspired to write ''The Ballad of Tom Dula'' because of Vance, saying "Despite his family's hard times after the early death of his father, Zeb Vance managed to get an education, read law, and get himself elected governor by the age of thirty. I thought that Vance could counteract the [negative Appalachian] stereotypes..."<ref name=":41">{{Cite web |title='The Ballad of Tom Dooley' by Sharyn McCrumb |url=https://www.sharynmccrumb.com/index.php/ballad-novels/the-ballad-of-tom-dooley |access-date=April 13, 2022 |website=www.sharynmccrumb.com}}</ref>

Always a controversial political figure, Vance became even more of an issue in the early 21st century because of his connection to slavery and his history of racism.<ref name=":29" /><ref name=":10" /><ref name=":31" /> In September 2017, the University of North Carolina at Asheville's Department of History and the Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace State Historic Site held a two-day symposium, "Zebulon B. Vance Reconsidered."<ref>{{Cite web |date=September 13, 2017 |title=Zebulon B. Vance Reconsidered |url=https://theurbannews.com/communities/2017/zebulon-b-vance-reconsidered/ |access-date=April 13, 2022 |website=The Urban News |language=en-US}}</ref> Kimberly Floyd, site manager of the Vance Birthplace and symposium co-convener said, "Zebulon Vance was a prominent figure in our state for four decades, and his is the story of both a hero and scoundrel." In August 2020, the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina at Asheville voted to rename Vance Hall because Vance "maintained racist stances that do not align with UNC Asheville's core values."<ref name=":29" /> In October 2020, the [[Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools|Charlotte–Mecklenburg Schools]] Board of Education voted to remove his name from its high school.<ref name=":10" /> In 2021, the City of Asheville and Buncombe County both voted to remove the Vance Monument from Pack Square in downtown Asheville.<ref name=":31">{{Cite web |last=Burgess |first=Joel |title=City vote advances removal of Asheville Confederate governor's monument |url=https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2020/12/08/city-vote-advances-removal-asheville-confederate-governor-monument-vance/6502512002/ |access-date=April 10, 2022 |website=The Asheville Citizen-Times |language=en-US}}</ref> Also in 2021, [[Asheville City Schools]] changed the name of its Vance Elementary School.<ref name=":33" />

==See also==
* [[List of United States Congress members who died in office (1790–1899)]]
* [[List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Zebulon Baird Vance}}
* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Vance%2C%20Zebulon%20Baird%2C%201830%2D1894 Online Books by Zebulon Baird Vance]

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