13 May 1830–14 Apr. 1894
See also: Zebulon Baird Vance, Research Branch, NC Office of Archives and History
Vance entered North Carolina politics as a Henry Clay Whig but on the dissolution of his party aligned himself with the American or Know-Nothing party. In 1858, after serving one term (1854) in the lower house of the North Carolina legislature, he was elected to the Thirty-fifth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Thomas L. Clingman. He also won a seat in the Thirty-sixth Congress (1859–61), the last before the disruption of the Union.
Refusing all overtures to be a candidate for the Confederate Congress Vance raised a company of "Rough and Ready Guards" and on 4 May 1861 marched off to war with a captain's commission. By June the "Guards" had become Company F, Fourteenth North Carolina Regiment, and were on duty in Virginia. In August Vance was elected colonel of the Twenty-sixth North Carolina, which he ably led in battle at New Bern in March 1862 and shortly afterwards in the Seven Days fighting before Richmond.
Although Vance was a good combat officer, he could not remove himself completely from politics. Thus he gladly accepted the Conservative party nomination for governor in 1862. The Conservatives, composed primarily of old-line Union Whigs, were led by W. W. Holden, editor of the North Carolina Standard and a bitter critic of President Jefferson Davis. The Confederate party, as the Democrats called themselves, selected "original secessionist" and railroad executive William Johnston of Mecklenburg County. The result was an overwhelming victory for Vance but not a verdict for reunion. It was more an expression of dissatisfaction with state and Confederate leadership and trying war conditions.
As war governor Vance worked hard to provide North Carolina troops and civilians with necessary arms, clothing, and food. At the same time he strongly defended the wartime rights of the state and its citizens. These efforts endeared him to his own people but oftentimes brought him into sharp dispute with the Davis administration. Vance objected strenuously to the Confederate conscription and impressment of property laws, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, discrimination against North Carolinians in the appointment and promotion of commissioned officers, and the use of Virginia officers in the state.
Disaffection in North Carolina manifested itself not only in desertion and draft evasion but also in the peace movement of 1863–64 led by Holden. Fearful of this development, Vance denounced it strongly and then broke with his erstwhile political ally. Thereupon Holden announced his candidacy for the governorship in 1864. The gubernatorial race of that year was a bitter one, but Vance won by a very convincing majority. From the moment of his reelection until the end of the war the next spring the governor worked untiringly for the Confederate cause. In early 1865 he refused to cooperate with a group in the Confederate Congress calling for peace on the basis of separate state action. However, on 10 April, having been informed that Confederate troops of General Joseph E. Johnston would soon have to evacuate Raleigh, Vance began the transfer of state records and military stores to Graham, Greensboro, and Salisbury. Two days later, with the capital unprotected and William T. Sherman's army rapidly advancing on the city from the east, he sent ex-governors David L. Swain and William A. Graham to open negotiations with the Union general. When the commissioners failed to return at the appointed time, late afternoon, the governor decided to leave Raleigh, which he did around midnight. After spending the remainder of the evening at General Robert F. Hoke's camp about eight miles from the city, he proceeded to Hillsborough and from there to Greensboro and thence to Charlotte by rail to talk with President Davis. Vance then returned to Greensboro. He was there when it was announced that General Johnston on 26 April had surrendered his forces to Sherman at the James Bennett farmhouse near Durham. On receipt of this news the governor issued his final proclamation to the people of North Carolina and then surrendered himself to Union general John M. Schofield. The general, having no orders for Vance's arrest, told him to go to Statesville, where Mrs. Vance and their children had sought safety. But early on the morning of 13 May the governor was arrested at his Statesville home. It was his thirty-fifth birthday. He was sent to Washington, D.C., and on the twentieth placed in the Old Capitol Prison where he remained until paroled on 6 July. No reason was ever given for his forty-seven-day imprisonment, and no charge was ever brought against him.
On 3 June 1865, in compliance with President Andrew Johnson's amnesty proclamation of 29 May and while still in prison, Vance filed an application for pardon. It was granted on 11 Mar. 1867. In the meantime he had returned to North Carolina and formed a law partnership in Charlotte. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1870, but due to the disabilities placed on ex-Confederates under the Fourteenth Amendment he was unable to take his seat in Congress. Later freed of political encumbrances, Vance accepted the Democratic (formerly Conservative) nomination for governor in 1876. His Republican opponent, Judge Thomas Settle of Rockingham County, was a very able man. The candidates agreed on a joint stumping tour of the state beginning at Rutherfordton in late July and lasting for three months. The debates, combined with the partisan bitterness of the times, made the campaign one of the most dramatic political contests in North Carolina history. Huge crowds gathered at campaign stops. Vance won, but his margin of victory was narrow. His third term as governor was noteworthy not only because it marked the end of Reconstruction in the state but also because of gains made in public education and railroad building.
Vance served only two years of his four-year term, as he was elected to the U.S. Senate by the General Assembly in 1878 on the expiration of A. S. Merrimon's term. Reelected in 1885 and 1891, he held his seat until his death. During his senatorial career Vance stoutly defended the interests of the South but at the same time harbored little bitterness towards the North. It was his misfortune, however, to be known as an opposition senator. He resisted much of the important legislation of the period, and no constructive enactment of the Senate is associated with his name.
Vance's health began to fail in 1889 with
the removal of one of his eyes. He died five years later of a stroke at his home in Washington. He was buried in Asheville. Vance was married twice. His first wife, Harriette Espy of Quaker Meadows, Burke County, whom he married on 3 Aug. 1853, bore him four sons: Robert Espy (b. 1854, died young), Charles Noel (b. 1856), David Mitchell (b. 1857), and Zebulon Baird, Jr. (b. 1860). She died in 1878. In 1880 he married a widow, Florence Steele Martin of Louisville, Ky., who survived him. They had no children.
Vance's engaging personality and lengthy public career gained for him an admiration from North Carolinians that no other state official has ever enjoyed. To the multitude especially he was a beloved leader. Ex-Confederate soldiers and their families were not quick to forget his efforts to care for them in time of war and how he defended their liberties and preserved their honor. As his funeral train moved westward through the state, thousands of humble people lined the tracks to pay their last respects to one whom they loved and admired very much.