Boundless Exhibit and the Battle of Forks Road- Cameron Art Museum

Edited from the Cameron Art Museum website- North Carolina artist Stephen Hayes has fashioned a life-size bronze sculpture from the cast features of 11 African American men connected to the site and its story– USCT descendants, re-enactors, veterans, and community leaders. Boundless was unveiled November 13, 2021, and is on permanent view in the PNC USCT Park on the museum grounds. The sculpture is connected deeply to the community’s history, its present, and its future. Stephen Hayes is the winner of the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art. He teaches in the department of Art and Art History at Duke University. Hayes’s work has been featured at the National Cathedral, Winston Salem State University, Duke University, CAM Raleigh, Rosa Parks Museum, African American Museum of Philadelphia, and Harvey B. Gantt Center, among others.

The PNC USCT Park is the only sculpture park in the nation created to honor the United States Colored Troops and their fight for freedom. Designed by LS3P, this award-winning park offers a place for quiet reflection and contemplation with corten steel benches and path lighting designed to symbolize the soldiers ongoing march towards freedom.

The Cameron Art Museum was the site of the Battle of Forks Road, a Civil War skirmish whose victory was won by the United States Colored Troops (USCT) and led to the fall of Wilmington. Their impact is significant, yet their story is virtually unknown. In February 1865, more than 1,800 United States Colored Troops fought for two consecutive days on the grounds of the current museum.

From an old Civil War Trails sign no longer standing is a description of the battle- “Here, in the earthworks in front of you, Confederate Gen. Robert F. Hoke’s troops made a stand on February 20-21, 1865. They were attempting to halt the Union army’s advance on Wilmington, the Confederacy’s principal seaport. Blockade runners, together with the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, formed a supply lifeline essential to the survival of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. That lifeline had been disrupted on January 15, when Fort Fisher, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, fell to Union army and navy forces. Four weeks later, the Federals headed for Wilmington to take control of the river and the railroads to supply Gen. William T. Sherman’s army, which was marching northward through the Carolinas to join Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s forces in Virginia. Hoke fought delaying actions as he withdrew up the east side of the Cape Fear River, with Union Gen. Alfred H. Terry’s troops in pursuit. On the afternoon of February 20, they engaged Hoke’s rear guard—Gen. Thomas L. Clingman’s brigade and the Wilmington Horse Artillery—here at Forks Road, then three miles south of Wilmington. The entrenched Confederates repulsed Col. Elias Wright’s brigade of U.S. Colored Troops (including 5th U.S.C.T.), inflicting more than fifty casualties from rifle and cannon fire. Retreating a short distance south, the Federals dug in and returned fire for about thirty-four hours. Hoke’s men retreated before dawn on February 22, and Union forces occupied Wilmington, so vital to the Confederate supply line. Six weeks later, Lee evacuated Richmond and Petersburg and the surrendered on April 9. Wilmington’s fall thereby hastened the downfall of the Confederacy.” A list of the USCTs who fought in the battle can be found at the link.