The Origin of Bull Durham Tobacco

(Duke) ... Union and Confederate armies regularly traded tobacco for coffee and other goods throughout the Civil War, also without much preference for brand. The Bull Durham brand, though, grew out of an incident in Durham, North Carolina that occurred at the close of the war. Soldiers from both sides raided a farmer's tobacco crop as they waited for a surrender to be completed. After returning home, these same soldiers wrote back asking for more of this tobacco. The farmer, Mr. John Green, happily obliged; the tobacco was named Bull Durham in 1868 and later became the largest selling tobacco brand in the world. Link

Photo: Duke University Libraries