This is the 3rd stop of 12 on the tour. A brochure with driving
directions and descriptive information is available at the
Visitor's Center (coords: 35° 14.630' -77° 35.040'); a recommended
starting point for the tour.
(See Stop #FB01 (GC1T6PC) for Tour
Prologue)
Stop #FB03 - First Battle of
Kinston
Union Camp
The majority of Gen. Foster’s troops, estimated to be at least
10,000, spent the night of Dec. 13, 1862 on this side of Southwest
Creek. Most of the open land you can see was used as camp sites for
the troops, animals, and military equipment. On the east side of
this intersection on the grassy section near the cemetery you see
before you, sat the Woodington Meeting House, built in 1829. The
Universalist, Methodist, and Free Will Baptist congregations of the
area used it also as a church. A historian of the 5th Regiment of
Massachusetts Volunteers wrote “The camp was pitched in a pleasant
grove near a little church known as Woodington…” Some members of
the regiment carved their names in the weatherboarding of the
building, and their names were readable for many years
afterwards.
The Woodington Meeting House still stands today as a farm
storage building where it was moved about one-half mile east of
here.
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Park by roadside in the space beside the forest just past the
Battlefield Tour sign #3.
Don’t forget to gather the Mystery Clue - Proceed to Stop
#FB04….