James Dearing at Plymouth

Over the past few months as I have worked on the Plymouth project, I discovered that no one really understands the role of Col. James Dearing. It is like he was every place, and in command of everything. How much of this is actually true? Maybe we should dig a little deeper into this story. 

James Dearing (Avoca Museum)

   Dearing was born in Campbell County, Virginia, on April 25, 1840. He entered West Point in 1858, and when Virginia seceded, he resigned on April 22, 1861, and returned to his native state.  Dearing first served as a lieutenant in the Washington Artillery, seeing action at the first battle of Manassas. In April 1862, he was promoted to captain, followed by a transfer to Latham’s battery. Dearing saw action during various portions of the Peninsula Campaign, although he was reported out sick during the Seven Days battles. Dearing was back with his battery during the battle of Second Manassas, this time as a part of James Longstreet’s command. Dearing missed the battle of Sharpsburg, being sent to southeastern Virginia. By December of 1862, Dearing was in command of three batteries. Following the battle of Fredericksburg, he was promoted to major.

   It was back to eastern Virginia for Dearing and his artillery battalion. While there, he was given command of a scouting expedition of infantry and cavalry, and captured several Federal pickets close to Suffolk. Dearing had his battalion broken up, and a portion of it was captured. With the reorganization of the army after Chancellorsville, Dearing’s battalion was enlarged. It was still assigned to Longstreet’s command. Following their involvement in the battle of Gettysburg, Dearing returned to Virginia. Dearing was back in Southeast Virginia that fall and early winter, this time in command of a cavalry battalion. He was also promoted to colonel and commanded a small group of mixed cavalry and artillery, and participated in the failed attempt to capture New Bern.[1]

   Dearing was a part of Robert F. Hoke’s force that invested and captured Plymouth in April 1864. He commanded the 8^th Confederate Cavalry with the Virginia Horse Artillery. Since no official record from Dearing, or Hoke, or the other two Confederate brigade commanders survives, it is really hard to say what his role in the battle was. Letters and diaries have him every place, fighting on every part of the field. Some of Dearing’s cavalry opened the battle by capturing Federal pickets.

   On April 17, Hoke ordered Kemper’s brigade, under Col. William R. Terry, with Dearing, to the Confederate left, testing the defenses of Fort Gray to the north of town. One historian writes that Dearing was ordered by Hoke to attack the fort. However, Terry outranks Dearing and the command to attack the fort should have gone to Terry.[2]

   Portions of Dearing’s command were sent to the Confederate right to scout the Columbia road, but just who these Confederates were serving under is not clear. On April 18, the second day of the battle, Dearing was ordered to take his artillery and reposition towards the Confederate center, this time facing Fort Wessells. Terry also repositioned Kemper’s brigade, and his brigade supports Hoke’s brigade, under the command of Col. John T.  Mercer, in their attack that captures the fort. One account has Dearing’s artillery arriving after the first charge to take the fort had failed.[3]

   After the Albemarle arrives and sinks the Southfield and drives off the Miami, early on the morning of April 19, it is Dearing that is sent to demand that Brig. Gen. Henry Wessells surrender the garrison at Plymouth, a demand that is refused. Late in the day, all of Dearing’s Cavalry, with Ransom’s brigade, is sent to the Confederate right. Dearing is in the area in the darkness, scouting the Federal lines and looking for a way over Conaby Creek. Ransom’s brigade makes its way over the creek, and early on the morning of April 20, launches an attack that captures the redoubt on that side of the town, in which Dearing is in front during the attack. After the works are successfully captured by the Confederates forces, Dearing and an unnamed officer from the Albemarle are seen rowing up the river toward Fort Gray. They are bringing a message from Hoke to the commander of the small fort, stating that further resistance is futile.[4]

   As already stated, if Dearing, Ransom, Lewis (who took command of Kemper’s brigade after Mercer was killed) or Hoke wrote an official report after the battle, they appear lost to history. Dearing was promoted to brigadier general soon after the battle. He spent the next couple of months in North Carolina, then in July, was transferred back to the Army of Northern Virginia and placed in Rooney Lee’s division. Beauregard recommend Dearing for promotion to major general, but that never happened. Dearing was mortally wounded at the battle of High Bridge on April 6, 1865, dying in Lynchburg on April 22.[5]  

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[1] Parker, General James Dearing, 1-50.

[2] Newsome, The Fight for the Old North State, 208.

[3] Roanoke Beacon, July 26, 1895; Richmond Dispatch, May 2, 1864.

[4] Johnston, Four Years a Soldier, 298; The Smithfield-Herald, April 19, 1901; The Standard Union, August 2, 1890; The National Tribune, September 25, 1884.

[5] Parker, General James Dearing, 60-95.

Jefferson Davis and Proclamations of Thanksgiving

Jefferson Davis 

    During the war years, it was fairly common for presidents, or army commanders, or a congress to call for days of thanksgiving after a military victory. Braxton Bragg called for such a day on September 18, 1862, following the surrender of 4,000 Federal soldiers at Munfordville, Kentucky, the previous day.[1] Robert E. Lee, following Braxton Bragg’s victory at Chickamauga, called on his men to render “to the Great Giver of Victory… our praise and thanksgiving for this signal manifestation of His favor…”[2] Nathan Bedford Forrest, writing from Tupelo, Mississippi, declared “Chaplains in the ministration of the gospel are requested to remember our personal preservation with thanksgiving and especially to beseech the Throne of Grace for aid in this our country’s hour of need,” on May 14, 1864.[3] There were calls for the governor of South Carolina to have a public day of Thanksgiving following the battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861.[4] This was followed by a call from the Confederate Congress for a day of Thanksgiving on the Sunday following the battle of First Manassas.[5] There are undoubtedly others. 

   Jefferson Davis would issue at least ten such calls for prayer, fasting, and/or thanksgiving during the war.[6] June 13, 1861 was one of the first, a call for a day of prayer and thanksgiving.[7] On February 20, 1862,  a proclamation on the “termination of the Provisional Government offers a fitting occasion to present ourselves in humiliation, prayer and thanksgiving before that God who has safely conducted us through the first year of our national existence.”[8]

 

   On September 18 came another proclamation, this time thanking “Almighty God for the great mercies vouchsafed to our people, and more especially for the late triumphs of our arms at Richmond and Manassas.[9] The text is copied below:

 

THANKSGIVING DAY 1862 for victory in battle BY JEFFERSON DAVIS

To the People of the Confederate States:

Once more upon the plains of Manassas have our armies been blessed by the Lord of Hosts with a triumph over our enemies. It is my privilege to invite you once more to His footstool, not now in the garb of fasting and sorrow, but with joy and gladness, to render thanks for the great mercies received at His hand. A few months since, and our enemies poured forth their invading legions upon our soil. They laid waste our fields, polluted our altars and violated the sanctity of our homes. Around our capital they gathered their forces, and with boastful threats, claimed it as already their prize. The brave troops which rallied to its defense have extinguished these vain hopes, and, under the guidance of the same almighty hand, have scattered our enemies and driven them back in dismay. Uniting these defeated forces and the various armies which had been ravaging our coasts with the army of invasion in Northern Virginia, our enemies have renewed their attempt to subjugate us at the very place where their first effort was defeated, and the vengeance of retributive justice has overtaken the entire host in a second and complete overthrow. To this signal success accorded to our arms in the East has been graciously added another equally brilliant in the West. On the very day on which our forces were led to victory on the Plains of Manassas, in Virginia, the same Almighty arm assisted us to overcome our enemies at Richmond, in Kentucky. Thus, at one and the same time, have two great hostile armies been stricken down, and the wicked designs of their armies been set at naught. 

   In such circumstances, it is meet and right that, as a people, we should bow down in adoring thankfulness to that gracious God who has been our bulwark and defense, and to offer unto him the tribute of thanksgiving and praise. In his hand is the issue of all events, and to him should we, in an especial manner, ascribe the honor of this great deliverance.

   Now, therefore, I, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, do issue this, my proclamation, setting apart Thursday, the 18th day of September inst., as a day of prayer and thanksgiving to Almighty God for the great mercies vouchsafed to our people, and more especially for the triumph of our arms at Richmond and Manassas; and I do hereby invite the people of the Confederate States to meet on that day at their respective places of public worship, and to unite in rendering thanks and praise to God for these great mercies, and to implore Him to conduct our country safely through the perils which surround us, to the final attainment of the blessings of peace and security.

   Given under my hand and the seal of the Confederate States, at Richmond, this fourth day of September, A.D.1862.[10]

 

   Davis would submit other days for official days of thanksgiving. One came in January 1863, following the victory at Fredericksburg the previous December.[11]  Another came in March 1863. “In obedience to His precepts, we have from time to time been gathered together with prayer and thanksgiving, and he has been graciously pleased to hear our supplications, and to grant abundant exhibitions of His favor to our armies and our people,” Davis wrote.[12]   

   Even though there were Confederate victories in 1864, such as Olustee, Kenesaw Mountain, Brice’s Crossroads, and Monocacy, there were fewer calls for days of thanksgiving. There were calls for days of prayer, humiliation, and fasting. One of these latter decrees came from the Confederate Congress in March.[13] Another came in February 1865.[14] It would be one of the last.

 

 

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[1] Official Records, Vol.16, pt. 2, 842.

[2] Official Records, Vol. 29, pt. 2, 746.

[3] Official Records, Vol. 39, pt. 2, 597.

[4] The Charleston Daily Courier, April 29, 1861.

[5] The Semi-Weekly Journal, (Raleigh), July 24, 1861.

[6] Allen, Jefferson Davis, Unconquerable Heart, 312.

[7] Newbern Weekly Progress, June 11, 1861.

[8] Southern Confederacy (Atlanta) February 21, 1862.

[9] Southern Confederacy, September 6, 1862.

[10] McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, 154.

[11] The Tarborough Southerner (North Carolina), January 17, 1863.

[12] The Abington Virginian, March 6, 1863.

[13] The Daily Dispatch, March 24, 1864.

[14] Richmond Dispatch, January 12, 1865.

Their thoughts on Manassas....

Here is another letter, this one from the July 29, 1861, edition of the Fayetteville Observer:

Interesting Letter From Manassas. - We have been favored with the sight of a letter from 2d Lieut. J. A. McPherson, of this county, in Capt. Avery's Company, of Col. Fisher's Regiment [6th NCST], (lately a student at Col. Hill's Military Institute at Charlotte,) dated at Manassas Station, July 22d, from which we are permitted to make the following extracts:-

"Leaving Richmond we went by railroad to Strawberry, and stayed there one night. Next morning we started for Winchester, 18 miles, on foot. We had to make a forced march of it, as Johnston was expected to he attacked by an overwhelming force. We arrived late in the evening, and were drawn out in line of battle. That night I lay in the corner of a fence with some wheat straw for a shelter. We stayed there till late next evening, when, not being attacked, we pitched our tents and slept in them one night.

News then came that Gen. Beauregard was attacked by a force of three to one, and that the forces threatening us had gone to unite with those against Beauregard. Early in the morning we struck our tents, and, with thousands of others, left Winchester late in the day. When out of town Col. Fisher read an order from the General to make a forced marched across the Blue Ridge. We marched till late in the night, and then all lay down by the road-side and slept. At day-break we started again, arrived at Piedmont that night and lay out in a wheat field all night. Next morning we were roused before day, and started for the cars, but did not get off till night. I stood it as well if not better than the most of them.

We reached Manassas early in the morning, and could hear the cannon firing. We got to the battle field about 12 o'clock, and were led into the fight, and that the hottest of it. Our front rank men fought bravely. We took two pieces of artillery that belonged to the brag battery of the U. S., Sherman's battery.  We were standing around the pieces, when some one cried out that we had fired into our friends. The enemy fired upon us from the bushes, and we fell back, as we thought it was our friends. Then they fired on is worse than ever. Our men killed all their horses and they could not take off the guns; so we got them. Col. Fisher was killed near the battery. I did not see him fall and did not know he was killed till the next day. He was shot through the head.

I never thought I could stand the fire of bullets as I did that day; and how I escaped being killed I do not know. it was just an act of providence that we were not killed by hundreds. About 100 of our regiment were killed and wounded--17 killed and some mortally wounded.

After that fight about 145 of our men went with some other regiments to protect the Washington Artillery of New Orleans. We reached a high hill and could see the enemy drawn out in line of battle. We followed them two or three miles, and that is the last we have seen of them.

We were then about 8 miles from the Junction. The General told us he would attach is to a Mississippi regiment, and we could stay there for the night. I made my supper that night on berries that I picked about in the old fields. We laid that night on the ground in an old field. On Monday morning it began to rain. Our men said they knew where there were plenty of yankee blankets, over-coats and oil-cloths. Some were sent for them and came in loaded down with blankets, over-coats, india rubber tablecovers, oil cloths, and haversacks. I have a splendid yankee over-coat and so has Capt. Avery. I have also one of their india rubber table-covers. I found these useful, as we had to march 8 miles in the raid and mud. We took thousands of blankets, over-coats, &c.

We have fought the flower of the  Northern army, and I think they had a great many more men that we had. Some of the wounded told us that they were old U. S. regulars, and I think they must have been, for they fought bravely.

We have just received orders to leave this place, to go I know not where, but I suppose towards Alexandria. N. W. Ray [of Cumberland county] is very well. He was not hurt.

More of their thoughts on Manassas...

This piece comes from the Fayetteville Observer, July 29, 1861:

LATEST - This morning's mail brought no Richmond or Petersburg papers-no mail north of Warsaw.

   But we have a letter from Raleigh which gives some deeply interesting particulars. the body of the brave and lamented Col. Fisher has arrived at Raleigh in charge of some of his officers, from whom (we infer) the following facts were obtained:-
     Col. Fisher's regiment suffered a great deal. They were engaged in the battle with the New York Zouaves whom it is said only two hundred escaped. Lieut. Col. Lightfoot of Fisher's regiment was wounded by a ball passing through his thigh. the Major (whose name we have not heard.) is missing. Originally, Dortch was Lieut. Col. and Lightfoot Major, but on the resignation of Dortch, Lightfoot was promoted and we have not seen the name of his successor as Major. it is said that 250 of Fisher's Regiment were killed or wounded.
   300 of Col. McRae's regiment were in the battle, (we do not know what companies) and are said to have suffered dreadfully - not enough men left alive or unwounded to make a respectable company. Col. McRae was not in command (owing to his lameness of course). lieut. Col. Jones doubtless commanded.
     Col. Kirkland's regiment arrived just as the enemy gave way, and possibly in time to engage in the pursuit.
     We learn that there was still another North Carolina regiment in the battle, but which it was not known to our correspondent.
     It has been reported in Raleigh that Capt. Yorke of Fisher's regiment, was killed, and his wife came to Raleigh yesterday morning to meet his body.  Instead of that she met friends bringing Col. Fisher's body, who told her of the safety of her husband and of his narrow escape, as follows: He was knocked down and stunned by the windage of a cannon ball. One of the enemy seeing this, rushed upon him to bayonet him; but he revived in time to seize his pistol and shoot the yankee. He seized the yankee's musket and rallied his men to the charge. Mrs. Yorke was yesterday the happy recipient of a letter from her husband and of the said yakee musket. Capt. Yorke is a small man, quite young, had been a teacher in Wake county, (we think he is a native of Randolph,) and he and every member of his company had been Union men up to Lincoln's Proclamation. We have often heard of him as a glorious fellow.
     Appearances seem to indicate, we think, that North Carolina did her full share of the work, and suffered her full share of the loss, in the glorious day at Manassas. if so, she does not appear, so far, to have received her full share of the credit.

Thoughts on Manassas

As you probably know, today marks the 150th anniversary of the battle of Manassas. There is much we could discuss regarding North Carolina's role in the battle. Something I hope to post more about later is North Carolina's reaction to the battle. But to start with (possibly to set the tone), I found this piece on the death of Colonel Fisher, killed on July 21 while leading the 6th NCST. This comes from the Raleigh Register, July 26, 1861.

Funeral Escort

     The body of the lamented Col. Fisher, of the 6th Regiment of North Carolina State Troops, was escorted yesterday evening by the larger portion of the 4th Regiment State troops from the same State, from the Central depot to the Petersburg depot, en route for home. Col. Fisher was shot through the head and instantly killed, while leading his men in the memorable battle, near Manassas, last Sunday. The grief of his men at the loss of their gallant chief was deep and universal. It has hardly been a week since the lamented officer passed through the streets of our city at the head of his regiment, a splendid brass band discoursing the while the song of an anticipated victory. It came, but the song of triumph was hushed, for victory was bought by the death of many a brave and true man. Coll. Fisher was enlisted  heart and soul in the cause of Southern independence. He had used his means unsparingly in the equipment of the splendid regiment that he led so gloriously to battle in defense of our common country. to him victory came even in the arms of death. To his relations and friends it must be consoling to know that a grateful nation will forever keep alive the memory of the heroes who fell on the bloody fields of Manassas. Peace to their [names].