What happened to North Carolina’s original copy of the Bill of Rights after the amendments were ratified?
After the Bill of Rights was ratified, the manuscript was stored in the State Capitol with other legislative records from the 1789 session. It is believed that the Bill of Rights remained in storage until the closing days of the Civil War. During the days following Raleigh’s surrender to Union General William Tecumseh Sherman in April 1865, the Capitol building was occupied and visited by Union soldiers. It is believed that North Carolina’s original copy of the Bill of Rights was taken as a souvenir by one of those soldiers.
