Chapter 1:
- First and last -- situation in the beginning -- preparing for war -- the dual Organizations of North Carolina troops, State and Confederate.
When the women of North Carolina, after years of unwearying effort to erect a State monument to the Confederate dead, saw their hopes realized in the beautiful monument now standing in Capitol Square, Raleigh, they caused to be chiseled on one of its faces this inscription: “First at Bethel:
Last at Appomattox.” This terse sentence epitomizes North Carolina's devotion to the Confederacy. From the hopeful 10th day of June, 1861, when her First regiment, under Col. D. H. Hill, defeated, in the first serious action of the Civil war, General Pierce's attack at Bethel, to the despairing 9th day of April, 1865, when Gen. W. R. Cox's North Carolina brigade of Gen. Bryan Grimes' division fired into an overwhelming foe the last volley of the army of Northern Virginia, North Carolina's time, her resources, her energies, her young men, her old men, were cheerfully and proudly given to the cause that she so deliberately espoused.
How ungrudgingly the State gave of its resources may be illustrated by a few facts. Gen. J. E. Johnston is authority for the statement that for many months previous to its surrender, General Lee's army had been fed almost entirely from North Carolina, and that at the time of his own surrender he had collected provisions [6] enough from the same State to last for some months.1 The blockade steamer Advance, bought by the State, operated in the interest of the State, brought into the port of Wilmington—not counting thousands of dollars' worth of industrial and agricultural supplies—‘leather and shoes for 250,000 pairs, 50,000 blankets, cloth for 250,000 uniforms, 2,000 Enfield rifles, with 100 rounds of fixed ammunition for each rifle, 500 sacks of coffee for the hospitals, $50,000 worth of medicines,’ etc.2 These articles were bought either from the sale of cotton or on the credit of the State, and were used not only by the State troops already mustered into the Confederate service, and hence having no further legal claim on the care of their own State, but were also distributed to troops from other States. In the winter succeeding Chickamauga, Governor Vance sent to Longstreet's corps 14,000 suits of uniform complete. Maj. A. Gordon of the adjutant-general's office says: ‘The State of North Carolina was the only one that furnished clothing for its troops during the entire war, and these troops were better clothed than those of any other State.3’ ‘The State arsenal at Fayetteville,’ reports Maj. M. P. Taylor,4 ‘turned out about 500 splendid rifles each month’—this being after the second year of the war. Wayside hospitals were established in all the chief towns for the sick and wounded. These things and hundreds of others were done, not simply in the first enthusiasm of the contest, but during the whole desperate struggle.
How unsparingly the State gave of her sons may be shown by a single instance cited by Governor Vance:
Old Thomas Carlton, of Burke county, was a good sample of the grand but unglorified class of men among us who preserve the savor of good citizenship and ennoble [7] humanity. He gave not only his goods to sustain women and children, but gave all his sons, five in number, to the cause. One by one they fell, until at length a letter arrived, telling that the youngest and last, the blue-eyed, fair-haired Benjamin of the hearth, had fallen also. When made aware of his desolation, he made no complaint, uttered no exclamation of heart-broken despair, but called his son-in-law, a delicate, feeble man, who had been discharged by the surgeons, and said, whilst his frail body trembled with emotion and tears rolled down his aged cheeks, ‘Get your knapsack, William, the ranks must be filled!’5
Every day some heart-broken mother showed the same spirit.
In the agitation that pervaded the South previous to secession, North Carolina preserved its usual conservative calmness of action. Her people, although profoundly stirred and keenly alive to the gravity of the ‘impending crisis,’ were loath to leave the Union cemented by the blood of their fathers. That retrospectiveness which has always been one of their marked characteristics, did not desert them then. Recollections of Mecklenburg, of Moore's Creek, of Guilford Court House pleaded against precipitancy in dissolving what so much sacrifice had built up. Even after seven of her sister States had adopted ordinances of secession, ‘her people solemnly declared’—by the election of the 28th of February, 1861—‘that they desired no convention even to consider the propriety of secession.’
But after the newly-elected President's Springfield speech, after the widespread belief that the Federal government had attempted to reinforce Sumter in the face of a promise to evacuate it, and especially after President Lincoln's requisition on the governor to furnish troops for what Governor Magoffin, of Kentucky, called ‘the wicked purpose of subduing sister Southern States,’—a requisition that Governor Jackson, of Missouri, [8] in a superflux of unlethargic adjectives, denounced as ‘illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical,’—there was a rapid change in the feelings of the people. Strong union sentiment was changed to a fixed determination to resist coercion by arms if necessary. So rapid was the movement of public events, and so rapid was the revolution in public sentiment, that just three months after the State had refused even to consider the question of secession, a convention composed almost entirely of men who thought it was the imperative duty of their State to withdraw from the Union was in session in Raleigh.
On May 200th, a day sacred to her citizens in that it marked the eighty-sixth anniversary of the colonial Declaration of Independence of England, the fateful ordinance that severed relations with the Union was adopted. Capt. Hamilton C. Graham gives the following account of the attendant circumstances:6
‘As a youthful soldier and eye-witness of the scene, it made an impression on me that time has never effaced. The convention then in session in Raleigh was composed of men famous in the history of the commonwealth. The city was filled with distinguished visitors from every part of the State and South. The first camp of instruction, located near by, under command of that noble old hero, D. H. Hill, was crowded with the flower of the old military organizations of the State, and sounds of martial music at all hours of the day were wafted into the city. When the day for the final passage of the ordinance of Secession arrived, the gallant and lamented Ramseur, then a major of artillery, was ordered to the Capitol grounds with his superb battery to fire a salute in honor of the event. The battery was drawn up to the left of the Capitol, surrounded by an immense throng of citizens. The convention in the hall of the house of representatives was going through the last formalities of signing the ordinance. The moment the last signature was fixed to the important document, the artillery thundered [9] forth, every bell in the city rang a peal, the military band rendered a patriotic air, and with one mighty shout from her patriotic citizens, North Carolina proclaimed to the world that she had resumed her sovereignty.’
This step meant war, and no people were ever less prepared for an appeal to arms. Agriculture and allied pursuits were the almost exclusive employments. Hence, for manufactured articles, from linchpins to locomotives, from joint-stools to cotton-gins, the State was dependent on Northern and English markets. According to the census of 1860, there were only 3,689 manufacturing establishments of all kinds in its borders, and most of these employed few laborers. Out of a total population of 992,622, only 14,217 were engaged in any sort of factories. The whole industrial story is told by a few of the reports to the census officers. For instance, there were in the State, as reported by these officers, the following insignificant number of workers in these most important occupations: In wrought iron, 129; in cast iron, 59; in making clothes, 12; in making boots and shoes, 176; in tanning leather, 93; in compounding medicines, 1. This was the foundation on which North Carolina, when cut off by the war from Northern markets and by the blockade from English or other foreign ports, made a most marvelous record of industrial progress, and developed a capacity for self-support as unexpected as it was wonderful.
But the State's power to manufacture the ordinary articles of commerce was truly boundless when compared with its capacity to produce arms, equipments and the general munitions of war. To make uniforms for over 100,000 soldiers, and at the same time to supply regular customers, there were seven small woolen mills! To furnish shoes, saddles, harness for the army, and also to keep the citizens supplied, there were ninety-three diminutive tanneries. The four recorded makers of fire arms were so reckless of consequences as combinedly [10] to employ eleven workmen and to use up annually the stupendous sum of $1,000 worth of raw material. The commonwealth was without a powder-mill, without any known deposits of niter, and without any supply of sulphur. Not an ounce of lead was mined, and hardly enough iron smelted to shoe the horses. One of the preliminaries to war was to buy a machine for making percussion caps. Revolvers and sabers, as Col. Wharton Green says, ‘were above all price, for they could not be bought.’ Cartridge belts were made out of several thicknesses of cloth stitched together and covered with varnish. For the troops so freely offering themselves there were no arms except a few hundreds in the hands of local companies and those that the State had seized in the Fayetteville arsenal. These, according to President Davis,7 consisted of 2,000 Enfield rifles and 25,000 old style, smooth-bore guns that had been changed from flint and steel to percussion. After these had been issued, the organizing regiments found it impossible for some time to get proper arms. Some, as the Thirty-first, went to the front with sporting rifles and fowling-pieces; some, as the Second battalion, supplemented their arms by borrowing from the governor of Virginia 350 veritable flint-and-steel guns that nobody else would have; some organized and drilled until Manassas and Seven Pines turned ordnance officer and supplied them with the excellent captured rifles of the enemy. However, after the fall of 1862 there was no difficulty in getting fairly effective small-arms.
But these difficulties never daunted so heroic a people nor led them to withhold their volunteers. ‘None,’ says Governor Vance,8 ‘stood by that desperate venture with better faith or greater efficiency. It is a proud assertion which I make to-day that, so far as I have been able to learn, North Carolina furnished more soldiers in [11] proportion to white population, and more supplies and materials in proportion to her means for the support of the war, than any other State in the Confederacy. I beg you to believe that this is said, not with any spirit of offense to other Southern States, or of defiance toward the government of the United States, but simply as a just eulogy upon the devotion of a people to what they considered a duty, in sustaining a cause, right or wrong, to which their faith was pledged.’
Such a military record, if the figures bear it out, is a proud heritage. Do figures sustain it? Adjutant and Inspector-General Cooper reports (probably a close estimate) that 600,000 men, first and last, enrolled themselves under the Confederate flag. What proportion of these ought North Carolina to have furnished? The total white population of the eleven seceding States was 5,441,320—North Carolina's was 629,942, and it was third in white population. Hence North Carolina would have discharged. to the letter every legal obligation resting upon it if it furnished 62,942 troops. What number did it actually supply?
On November 19, 1864, Adjt.-Gen. R. C. Gatlin, a most careful and systematic officer, made an official report to the governor on this subject. The following figures, compiled from that report by Mr. John Neathery, give the specific information:
| Number of troops transferred to the Confederate service, according to original rolls on file in this office | 64,636 |
| Number of conscripts between ages of 18 and 45, as per report of Commandant of Conscripts, dated September 30, 1864 | 18,585 |
| Number of recruits that have volunteered in the different companies since date of original rolls (compiled) | 21,608 |
| Number of troops in unattached companies and serving in regiments from other States | 3, 103 |
| Number of regular troops in State service | 3,203 |
| ——— | |
| Total offensive troops | 111,135 |
| To these must be added: Junior reserves | 4,217 |
| Senior reserves | 5,686 |
| ——— | |
| Total troops in active service | 121,038 |
[12]
| Then, organized and subject to emergency service in the State, Home Guard and Militia | 3,962 |
| —— | |
| Total troops, armed, equipped and mustered into State or Confederate service | 125,000 |
From these official figures it will be seen that, estimating the offensive troops alone, North Carolina exceeded her quota 41,715 men. Including the Junior and Senior reserves, who did active duty in garrison, guarding prisoners, and on occasion good fighting, the State exceeded its quota by 51,618. Taking all, it went over its quota by the large sum of 55,580! This number of troops far exceeded the State's voting population. The highest vote ever cast was in the Ellis-Pool campaign. The total vote in that election was 112,586. Hence, even leaving out the Home Guards, North Carolina sent to the Confederate armies 8,452 more men than ever voted at one of its elections.
Another remarkable proof of the State's brave devotion to the Confederacy is noteworthy in this connection. As shown by the census of 1860, the total number of men in North Carolina between the ages of 20 and 60, the extreme limits of military service, was 128,889. Subtract from this number the number of troops furnished, and it reveals the extraordinary fact that in the whole of North Carolina there were only 3,889 men subject to military duty who were not in some form of martial service. Most of these 3,889 were exempted because they were serving the State, in civil capacity, as magistrates, county officers, dispensers of public food, etc. So, practically, every man in the State was serving the State or the Confederacy. It may well be doubted whether a more striking evidence of public devotion was every recorded.
In April, 1861, it became apparent that a peaceful arbitrament of existing difficulties was hardly possible, so the authorities began to organize the troops. The regiments, offering themselves in hot haste, were organized [13] under two separate laws: First, those that organized under the old law of the State, through Adjt.-Gen. John F. Hoke's office, were called ‘Volunteers;’ second, those that organized for the war under the act of the May convention were called ‘State Troops.’
The ‘Volunteers’ were the first to begin mobilization; for on the 17th of April, a month before the secession convention, Governor Ellis, seeing that some sort of struggle was inevitable, had called for volunteers. The companies responding to this call were, in accordance with the usual routine, placed in camps of instruction to be armed, equipped and drilled. The first camp was pitched in Raleigh, and Governor Ellis invited Maj. D. H. Hill, of Charlotte, to take command of it. Major Hill was a West Pointer and a veteran of the Mexican war. To the raw volunteers, unused to any restrictions, as well as to the men accustomed to the laxity of militia methods, he seemed, as Judge McRae expressed it, ‘a tremendous disciplinarian.’ But, adds the Judge, in speaking of the effect of his discipline on the first body organized there, ‘As a proof of the value of the training, the old First (on its disbandment at the expiration of its term of enlistment) sent scores, I might almost say hundreds, of officers into other commands.’ From the material assembled at Raleigh, the First regiment was soon formed and hurried away to Virginia under Major Hill, whom it elected colonel. Then, says Major Gordon, whose excellent article on the ‘Organization of the Troops’ furnishes many of these facts, ‘the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh soon followed. The first six were sent to Virginia, the Seventh to Hatteras.’ These regiments were under the following colonels: Solomon Williams, W. D. Pender, Junius Daniel, R. M. McKinney, Stephen Lee and W. F. Martin. However, many of them were soon reorganized. Between the 15th of June and the 18th of July, the Eighth, Colonel Radcliffe; the Tenth, Colonel Iverson; the [14] Eleventh, Colonel Kirkland; the Twelfth, Colonel Pettigrew; the Thirteenth, Colonel Hoke; the Fourteenth, Colonel Clarke, were organized. It will be noticed that no Ninth regiment is included in these fourteen. There was some controversy about the officers of this regiment, and this number was subsequently given to Spruill's cavalry legion. These were the regiments that afterward had their numbers changed by ten: i. e., instead of retaining their numbers from one to fourteen, as organized, they were changed to number from eleven to twenty-four. The First volunteer regiment, hence, became the Eleventh, and so through the series of fourteen.
Coincident with the formation of many of these volunteer regiments, ten other regiments were organizing. The convention had directed Governor Ellis to raise ten regiments for the war. These were to be designated as ‘State troops,’ and were to be numbered from one to ten. The Ninth regiment was to be cavalry, and the Tenth, artillery. Major Gordon says, an adjutantgen-eral and other staff officers were authorized for these troops. Maj. J. G. Martin, on his arrival at Raleigh, after his resignation from the United States army, was appointed by the governor adjutant-general of this corps. This office soon became one of the utmost importance. Col. John F. Hoke, the regular adjutant-general, having resigned to accept the colonelcy of the Thirteenth volunteers, the duties of both these offices were consolidated under Major Martin. More important still,
the legislature conferred upon him all the military powers of the State, subject to the orders of the governor. It consolidated under him the adjutant-general, quartermaster-general, ordnance and pay departments. Organization of the Troops.The man thus trusted was a one-armed veteran of the Mexican war, a rigid disciplinarian, thoroughly trained in office work, and not only systematic but original in his plans. The State has never fully appreciated, [15] perhaps never known, the importance of the work done for it by this undemonstrative, thoroughly efficient officer.
Under Martin's supervision the ten regiments of ‘State troops’ and all subsequent regiments were organized. The first six regiments, commanded respectively by Cols. M. S. Stokes, C. C. Tew, Gaston Meares, George B. Anderson, D. K. McRae, and Charles F. Fisher, were in a short while transferred to the Confederacy and ordered to Virginia, three of them arriving there in time to be present at the first battle of Manassas. The Seventh, Col. R. P. Campbell, was, after some delay, sent to New Bern; and the Eighth, on its completion, went to garrison Roanoke island. The Ninth was a cavalry regiment formed by Col. Robert Ransom. There were many exasperating delays in getting this regiment equipped. Horses were scarce, and Major Gordon says that neither the State nor the Confederate States could furnish saddles or sabers. Saddles were at last found in New Orleans, and Spruill's legion, on the promise of being furnished later, generously gave up its sabers. While still ill-fitted for active service, this regiment joined General Johnston near Manassas. The Tenth regiment was composed of five batteries of light artillery and five of heavy. J. J. Bradford was its first colonel, but the regiment was, in the nature of things, always scattered. The equipping of this regiment was slow and trying. The first battery ready was a magnificent body of men, and was armed with the light guns seized in the Fayetteville arsenal—the only complete battery in the State. It elected Lieut. S. D. Ramseur first captain; on his promotion it was commanded by Basil C. Manly, and then by B. B. Guion. The next was Reilly's hard-fighting Rowan light battery This battery was equipped with guns captured at Manassas. After Reilly's promotion to major, Capt. John A. Ramsey commanded it to the end of the war. Capt. T. H. Brem, of Charlotte, [16] organized another of the light batteries, and with rare patriotism advanced out of his private means the money to buy uniforms, equipment and horses. Capts. Joseph Graham and A. B. Williams succeeded to the command. When this battery lost its guns at New Bern, the town of Charlotte had its church bells moulded into new guns for it. The other two light batteries were commanded by Capts. A. D. Moore and T. J. Southerland. The five heavy batteries, commanded respectively by Capts. H. T. Guion, W. S. G. Andrews, J. L. Manney, S. D. Pool and T. K. Sparrow, were all assigned to coast defense, and while they did not have as much field service as the light batteries, they were called upon to do much arduous and thankless service, and did it well.
By this dual system of organization there were two sets of regiments with the same numbers: First and Second regiments of volunteers and First and Second State troops, and so on. This led to confusion. So to the ‘State troops,’ as being enlisted for the longer term, the numbers one to ten were assigned, and the ‘Volunteers’ were required to add ten to their original numbers. Hence, of course, the First volunteers became the Eleventh; the Second, the Twelfth; and the last of these under the first organization, the Fourteenth, became the Twenty-fourth.
Following these, the regiments went up in numerical order, and by the close of 1861, or early in 1862, the following had organized: The Twenty-fifth, Col. T. L. Clingman; Twenty-sixth, Col. Z. B. Vance; Twenty-seventh, Col. G. B. Singletary; Twenty-eighth, Col. J. H. Lane; Twenty-ninth, Col. R. B. Vance; Thirtieth, Col. F. M. Parker; Thirty-first, Col. J. V. Jordan; Thirty-second, Col. E. C. Brabble; Thirty-third, Col. L. O'B. Branch; Thirty-fourth, Col. C. Leventhorpe; Thirty-fifth, Col. James Sinclair; Thirty-sixth (artillery), Col. William Lamb; Thirty-seventh, Col. C. C. Lee; Thirty-eighth, Col. W. J. Hoke; Thirty-ninth, [17] Col. D. Coleman; Fortieth (heavy artillery), Col. J. J. Hedrick; Forty-first (cavalry), Col. J. A. Baker.
‘Thus,’ comments Gordon, ‘the State had, in January, 1862, forty-one regiments armed and equipped and transferred to the Confederate States government.’
Long before these latter regiments were all mustered in, the earlier ones had received their ‘bloody christenings.’ Some one has said that in the drama of secession North Carolina's accession was the epilogue, but it is equally true that in the tragedy of battle that followed she furnished the prologue; for within two months after its officers were commissioned, the First regiment was engaged in the first battle of the war, and one of its members was summoned to form the advance guard of the new Confederate army that then began to enlist under the black flag of Death.
The long struggle that was to cost North Carolina all its wealth, except its land; that was to overthrow its social system; that was to crush to mute despair its home-keepers; that was to cause the almost reckless pouring out of the blood of as proudly submissive, as grimly persistent, as coolly dauntless a body of soldiers as ever formed line of battle opened at Bethel Church, Va. Bethel is only a short distance from Yorktown. It is not a little singular that the great contest with our brethren began only ten miles from the spot where the weary struggle of our fathers culminated.
This battle—if with the memory of Gettysburg and Chickamauga still fresh, we can call it a battle—was fought on the 10th of June, 1861. Being the first serious fight, of the war, it of course attracted attention out of proportion to its importance. Anticipating attack, Col. D. H. Hill had, with the First North Carolina regiment, thrown up an enclosed earthwork on the bank of Marsh creek. The Confederate position was held by the following forces: Three companies of the Third Virginia, under Lieut.-Col. W. D. Stuart, occupied a slight earthwork [18] to the right and front of the enclosed work; three companies of the Virginia battalion, under Maj. E. B. Montague; five pieces of artillery, under Maj. (afterward secretary of war) G. W. Randolph, of the Richmond howitzers; and the First North Carolina, under Colonel Hill, occupied the inside of the works. The companies composing the North Carolina regiment, which had the envied distinction of being the initial troops to enter organized battle, were: Edgecombe Guards, Capt. J. L. Bridgers; Hornet's Nest Riflemen (Mecklenburg), Capt. L. S. Williams; Charlotte Grays, Capt. E. A. Ross; Orange light infantry, Capt. R. J. Ashe; Buncombe Rifles, Capt. William McDowell; Lafayette light infantry (Cumberland), Capt. J. B. Starr; Burke Rifles, Capt. C. M. Avery; Fayetteville light infantry, Capt. Wright Huske; Enfield Blues, Capt. D. B. Bell; Southern Stars (Lincoln), Capt. W. J. Hoke. The whole force was nominally under the command of Col. J. B. Magruder, and numbered between 1,200 and 1,400 men.
To surprise and capture this force, Gen. B. F. Butler, commanding on the Virginia coast, sent Gen. E. W. Pierce with five New York regiments, five companies of the First Vermont, five companies of the Fourth Massachusetts, two of Carr's mountain howitzers, and two pieces of regular artillery under Lieut. J. T. Greble, the whole force amounting, according to General Carr9 of the Federal army, to 3,500 men. On the night of the 9th this force was advanced toward the Confederate position on two roads. At the convergence of these roads Colonel Bendix's Seventh New York regiment mistook Colonel Townsend's Third New York for Confederates and fired upon it. The fire was returned and twenty-one were killed and wounded before the mistake could be corrected.10 Thinking it impossible after the [19] firing to surprise the Confederates, General Pierce sent back for reinforcements and then moved on toward Bethel. About 9 o'clock on the morning of the 10th the Federals appeared on the field in front of the Southern works, and Greble's battery took position. A shot from a Parrott gun in the Confederate works ushered in the great Civil war on land. The first Federal attack was on the front. As a result of this attack Colonel Carr says: ‘Our troops were soon seeking the shelter of the woods after a vain attempt to drive the enemy from the works.’ This attack was repelled mainly by Randolph's accurate fire, aided by the gallant conduct of the Burke Rifles under Captain Avery and by the Hornet's Nest Rifles. A little later in the action the Edgecombe Guards, Captain Bridgers, gallantly retook a redoubt that had, on the accidental disabling of a gun, been abandoned by the Confederates. In front of this redoubt the Federals had found shelter behind and in a house. Colonel Hill called for volunteers from the Edgecombe Guards to burn this house. Sergt. George H. Williams, Thomas Fallon, John H. Thorpe, H. L. Wyatt and R. H. Bradley promptly offered their services and made a brave rush for the house. On the way a shot from the enemy's rear guard struck Wyatt down. The determined spirit of this heroic young soldier led to a premature death, but by dying he won the undying fame of being the first Confederate soldier killed in action.
An attempt to turn the Confederate left having failed, a force headed by General Butler's aide, the gifted young Connecticut novelist, Maj. Theodore Winthrop, made an atempt on the left, but the Carolinians posted there killed Winthrop at the first fire, and his followers soon rejoined Pierce and the whole force retreated toward Fortress Monroe. Just at the close of the action, Lieutenant Greble, who had served his guns untiringly against the Confederates, was killed. The gun [20] that he was firing was abandoned, says General Carr, and his body left beside it, but subsequently recovered by a company that volunteered for that purpose.
Swinton in his Army of the Potomac says that while Colonel Warren yet remained on the ground the Confederates abandoned the position. This is far from correct. General Magruder in his report says that the Confederate cavalry pursued the Federals for five miles. Colonel Carr, who commanded the Federal rear guard, says,
The pursuit of the Confederates was easily checked. Battles and Leaders, II, 150.These two reports establish the fact that there was pursuit and not abandonment. Colonel Magruder further says,11 ‘It was not thought prudent to leave Yorktown exposed any longer. I therefore occupied the ground with cavalry, and marched the remainder of my force to Yorktown.’ So evidently the position was not abandoned while ‘Warren was yet on the ground.’ The Confederate loss in this precursor of many bloody fields was 1 killed and 11 wounded; the Federal loss was 18 killed and 53 wounded.
In the South this little victory over a vastly superior force awakened the wildest enthusiasm, for it was thought to indicate the future and final success of the cause for which its people were battling. [21]
