Origion of the Tar Heel Ask any North Carolinian how they came to be called "Tar Heels" and you'll get a different story every time. While no one really knows for sure, there are several legendary stories. Some say it relates back to Colonial days when North Carolina was a big producer of tar, pitch, and turpentine and men would come home from work with tar stuck on their feet. Another story goes that during the Revolutionary War tar was dumped into the Tar River to keep it from capture. On their way to Yorktown, Cornwallis' British troops got stuck in the tar attempting to ford the river. One of the more popular has North Carolina troops sticking to their posts during a hard Civil War battle in Virginia, prompting President Jefferson Davis to ask about buying up all the tar in North Carolina to make Virginians "stick fast" too. General Robert E. Lee then praised "God bless the Tar Heel boys."