See North Carolina sites by bus this fall

Hop on the bus, Gus, if you want to discuss much* about the Civil War in North Carolina.

The North Carolina Office of Archives and History is organizing a sesquicentennial bus tour Oct. 24-26 that will include several key Civil War sites: The antebellum state Capitol in Raleigh, Fort Fisher near Wilmington, The CSS Neuse ironclad in Kinston, the Bentonville battlefield and Bennett Place near Durham, site of a large Confederate surrender.

Author and historian Mark Bradley will be the lead interpreter on the bus, according to a press release.

Registration deadline is Sept. 29 and officials say spaces should fill up quickly. Through Sept. 15, the cost is $375 per person based on double occupancy and $455 per person for single occupancy. Following Sept. 15, the price is $395 per person double occupancy and $475 per person single occupancy.

"Intimate conversations and information from historians and staff of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources' Division of State Historic Sites will offer unique insights into the waning days of the Civil War, and North Carolina's role in it," said the release. "Pivotal events in North Carolina hastened the fall of the Confederacy and the end of the war in 1865." 

(*Apologies to songwriter Paul Simon)