Diary of Orrin Brown, Goldsboro, North Carolina
Friday–Apr. 7th
The day has been cloudy with a few light sprinkles of rain. I received a letter from home today and answered it. There was a funeral procesion of some officer passed our camp just after noon. I am no better than I was yesterday. I read 3 Chapt. today. The regt was on Company drill two hours AM and two PM and dress parade at 5 PM.
The city of Wilson, North Carolina, just north of Goldsboro, is home to about 50,000 people today. Once known as “The World’s Greatest Tobacco Market”, Wilson has been in the news this year for their municipal “gigabit” fiber-to-the-home broadband service. Wilson joined Chattanooga, Tennessee, in successfully petitioning the FCC to pre-empt their states’ laws limiting provision of service outside their city limits. The FCC issued their decision on the same day as their controversial “net neutrality” ruling, so it didn’t make as much news as it might have been, but it’s still a pretty big deal. And that’s quite some progress in 150 years since Sherman’s troops foraged the countryside.
Rodger Lentz, AICP, was (at time of original posting) Chief Planning and Development Officer for the City of Wilson and a member of the board of the American Planning Association. APA’s Policy News blog interviewed Rodger and the general manager of Greenlight, Wilson’s broadband network, after the FCC decision.
Read More:
- Sherman’s March Through the Carolinas by John Gilchrist Barrett (Univ North Carolina Press, 1956)
- Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman by Robert L. O’Connell (Random House, 2014)
- The March to the Sea and Beyond: Sherman’s Troops in the Savannah and Carolinas Campaigns by Joseph T. Glatthaar (New York University Press, 1985)
- The Memoirs Of General William T. Sherman by W.T. Sherman (Library of America, 1990)
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