Zebulon Baird "Zeb" Vance (May 13, 1830 – April 14, 1894) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 37th and 43rd governor of North Carolina, a U.S. Senator from North Carolina, and a Confederate officer during the American Civil War.
A prolific writer and noted public speaker, Vance became one of the most influential Southern leaders of the Civil War and postbellum periods. As a leader of the New South, Vance favored the rapid modernization of the Southern economy, railroad expansion, school construction, and reconciliation with the North. In addition, he frequently spoke out against antisemitism. Although Vance was considered progressive by many during his lifetime, he was also a slave owner and is now regarded as a racist by modern historians and biographers.
Early life
Vance was born in a log cabin in the settlement of Reems Creek in Buncombe County, North Carolina near present-day Weaverville, and was baptized at the Presbyterian Church on Reems Creek. He was the third of eight children of Mira Margaret Baird and David Vance Jr., a farmer and innkeeper. His paternal grandfather, David Vance, was a member of the North Carolina House of Commons and a colonel in the American Revolutionary War, serving under George Washington at Valley Forge. His maternal grandfather was Zebulon Baird, a state senator from Buncombe County, North Carolina. His uncle was Congressman Robert Brank Vance, namesake of his elder brother, Congressman Robert B. Vance.
Around 1833, the Vance family moved to Lapland, now Marshall, North Carolina. There, David Vance operated a stand, providing drovers with provisions as they moved hogs and other animals along the Buncombe Turnpike to markets to the south and east. Although frequently short of cash, the family enslaved as many as eighteen people. Vance's family had an unusually large library for its era and location, left to them by an uncle.
At the age of six, Vance attended schools operated by M. Woodson, Esq., first at Flat Creek and, later, on the French Broad River. Both were far enough from home that he had to board with others. He also was a student at a school in Lapland run by Jane Hughey.
While a youth, Vance broke his thigh when he fell from a tree. This was treated by confining Vance in a box, as was common medical care at the time. As a result of this injury, his right leg was shorter, requiring him to wear a taller heel on the right shoe. Even so, it was said that Vance had "a peculiar and slightly ambling gate".
When he was thirteen years old in the fall of 1843, Vance went to the Washington College in Tennessee. In January 1844, his father died from a construction accident, forcing Vance to withdraw before the school year was over. Mira Vance sold much of the family's property to pay her husband's many debts and to support her seven children. As one writer noted, the family was "embarrassed with debt". She moved her family to nearby Asheville, bringing along enslaved women and children as household workers. However, the family still lacked the money to send Vance back to school in Tennessee. Instead, Vance and his brother Robert attended Newton Academy in Asheville.
To help support his family, Vance worked for John H. Patton as a hotel clerk in Warm Springs, now Hot Springs, North Carolina. In Asheville, Vance studied law under attorney John W. Woodfin. When he was 21 years old, Vance wrote family friend, David L. Swain, asking for a loan to study law in college. Swain was a former North Carolina governor and then president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Swain was also an elementary schoolmate of Vance's mother. Swain arranged for a $300 loan for Vance from the university.
Vance attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill starting in July 1851 and had a "brilliant academic year". One of his classmates, Major James W. Wilson, recalled Vance's arrival in Chapel Hill with "homemade shoes and clothes, about three inches of between pants and shoes, showing his sturdy ankles...." Another classmate, Kemp P. Battle, wrote Vance "had a brain large and active; a memory tenacious, a nature overflowing with joyous love of fun, and to a surprising degree accurate information of many subjects and many authors." While at the university, Vance was a member of the Dialectic Society which helped improve his oratory skills, as well as his ability to speak extemporarily. He also joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. Vance received an LL.D in 1852 and repaid the loan from the university with interest.