Winning artist Natalie Dail compares her design for the new CSS Neuse Civil War Interpretative Center T-shirt with the current T-shirt held by Matthew Young, the museum’s site director.

Using her talent as an artist, Natalie Dail has written herself into the long history of the Civil War gunboat CSS Neuse.

The South Lenoir High School senior won a contest sponsored by the CSS Neuse Civil War Interpretative Center to create a design for the Kinston museum’s new T-shirt. 

Museum site director Matthew Young and program coordinator Rachel Kennedy presented Natalie with a gift card and made preliminary arrangements for a personalized tour of the museum for her and her family last week. She will also be recognized on social media and in a museum publication.

“I was super excited,” Natalie said, recalling the email that told her she’d won. “It made my day.”

Natalie has honed her lifelong interest in art through classes at South Lenoir with art teacher Laura Jackson and through art classes at Lenoir Community College, where she’s taking college-level courses this year.

Her design greatly simplifies the art on the museum’s current T-shirt. It features an anchor, nautical rope and a front view of the gunboat, all framing the words, “CSS Neuse Civil War Interpretative Center, Kinston, NC.”

The contest was open to any Lenoir County resident, but Kennedy pushed to get students involved. A committee of community members, museum staff and local artists chose the winner.

“When the judges saw her design, they all said that’s the one,” Kennedy said.

The new T-shirt is expected to be available for sale by Christmas, according to Young. It will be available in the gift shop of the museum, at 100 N. Queen St.

CSS Neuse was a steam-powered ironclad ram of the Confederate States Navy that served in the latter part the Civil War and was eventually scuttled to avoid capture by Union Army forces advancing on Kinston. Remains of its hull were recovered in the Neuse River in the 1960s and became the centerpiece of a state historic site in 1964. The hull was moved to the downtown museum in 2012.