North Carolina’s Hospitals in Charleston

   Samuel Cooper, Adjutant and Inspector General of the Confederate armies, issued General Order No. 95 on November 25, 1862. The twelve-point order dealt with the administration of Confederate hospitals, items such as the hospital fund, the requisition of clothes for the wounded, the duties of matrons, etc. Point number 10 specified that “Hospitals will be known and numbered as hospitals of a particular State. The sick and wounded, when not injurious to themselves or greatly inconvenient to the service, will be sent to the hospitals representing their respective States, and to private or State hospitals representing the same.”[1]

   It is not clear to what extent this order was adopted. In Richmond, the Confederate city with the best book on Confederate hospitals, there were several state hospitals. Many of these had more than one name or were later absorbed into the Confederate hospital system. These include the Mississippi Hospital (General Hospital #2); Second Georgia (General Hospital #14); First Georgia (General Hospital #16); Fourth Georgia (General Hospital #17); Third Georgia (General Hospital #19); First Alabama (General Hospital #20); North Carolina Hospital (General Hospital #24); Texas Hospital (General Hospital #25); Louisiana Hospital; South Carolina Hospital. There were at least 140 hospitals in Richmond.[2]

   Charleston, South Carolina, also became a hospital center for the Confederacy, with at least twenty-five hospitals. The war-time history of Charleston is well known. Many consider the bombardment of Fort Sumter to be the beginning of the war. The battle of Secessionville was fought in June 1862. Naval bombardments of the city and surrounding fortifications began in 1863, and the first and second battles of Fort Wagner were waged in 1863 as well.  There were numerous regiments that were assigned to duty in Charleston over the course of the war. The majority of soldiers who were there were, of course, from South Carolina, but there were troops from Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina there as well. 

White House, Charleston, SC

   North Carolina regiments assigned to the defenses of Charleston include the 8^th North Carolina, 31^st North Carolina, 51^st North Carolina, and 61^st North Carolina. Those four North Carolina regiments, part of the brigade commanded by Thomas L. Clingman, were assigned to the defenses of Charleston in February 1863 and remained in the city through the end of the year. The 8^th and 31^st participated in the battle at Battery Wagner on July 18, 1863. The 1^st North Carolina Hospital in Charleston was established in August 1863 on one of the city wharves, but it was forced to relocate when the bombardment commenced. The new location was a “fine dwelling” at the intersection of Mary and American Streets. A chimney fire destroyed this building in January 1864.[3] It is unclear if during one of their moves if the hospital was redesignated the 2^nd North Carolina Hospital. The 3^rd North Carolina hospital was established at the White home on Charlotte Street. It was a large brick home that served as Daniel Sickle’s headquarters after the war.[4] Artilleryman Daniel E.H. Smith was taken to the hospital on Charlotte Street at one point during the war. “I was carried to the very top of the house and put to bed in an attic room. The Matron, or head nurse, was Mrs. Lining, a lady of good birth, who was very kind to me.” Smith mentions that a Dr. Meminger was in charge of the hospital.[5] It is not clear who Doctor Meminger was. 

The Charleston Daily Courier August 10, 1863. 

   More information about these North Carolina hospitals in Charleston is sparse. The Charleston Daily Courier advertised on August 5, 1864, that two good cooks were wanted at the “North Carolina General Hospital on East-Bay Street and Fraser’s Wharf.” The Soldier’s Relief Association of Charleston donated fifty shirts, fifty pairs of drawers, twenty-four fans, linen, and arrowroot, along with fifteen chickens, one bag of meal, three dozen eggs, potatoes and tea in August.[6] T. Player Edwards, hospital steward, acknowledged the receipt of cash from churches in Wilmington and the Ladies’ Aid Society in Asheville, along with items like potatoes, eggs, blackberry and catsup, shirts, drawers, socks, and six bottles of Calisaya bitters from individuals.[7] W. H. McDowell, assistant superintendent of the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad, informed the people of Wilmington that the railroad would transport food and other provisions to the North Carolina Hospital in Charleston for free.[8]

   Finding a list of those treated at the North Carolina Hospital in Charleston is difficult. It appears that most of the records were lost. One newspaper informs us that there were eight South Carolina soldiers at the hospital in September 1863, while there were several North Carolina soldiers at the Citadel Square Hospital.[9] C. F. Townsend, Co. E, 51^st North Carolina Troops, was sent to the North Carolina Hospital after being struck by a shell at Sullivan’s Island.[10]

   The Rev. E. T. Winkler, the Senior Chaplain of Hospitals in Charleston, wrote to the Biblical Recorder in late September, telling the editor that the North Carolina Hospital in Charleston was “thronged with the sick and wounded from” North Carolina and asked for fifty copies of the Biblical Record for the convalescing soldiers. Winkler wrote of one patient from North Carolina whom he considered one “of the bravest men whom I have ever met. . . who told me with his dying breath, ‘Tell my wife that when I fell in the field, I fell in the arms of Jesus.’”[11]

   In November there was an advertisement for two white male nurses, “recommended for sobriety and honesty” to work at the hospital. Not only was it a paid position, but rations were also furnished.[12]

   While Clingman’s brigade of North Carolina Troops was transferred in late 1863, the North Carolina Hospital in Charleston remained open. In June 1864, an article mentioned the new location and that surgeon J. G. Thomas was in charge.[13] This is undoubtedly Dr. James G. Thomas. A native of Kentucky. Thomas served in several hospitals in Oxford and Jackson, Mississippi, then as surgeon of the 39^th Alabama Infantry before being assigned to Charleston. While in Charleston, he not only worked at the North Carolina Hospital, but also in the South Carolina and Georgia hospitals as well. Doctor Thomas was reassigned to Macon, Georgia, in June 1864. Thomas’s listing as surgeon seems to be the last time the North Carolina Hospital in Charleston is mentioned. Just when the hospital closed is unknown.

   It is possible that more information about the hospital might be difficult to obtain. Rebecca Calcutt tells us that many of the military records from Charleston were moved to Columbia towar the end of the war for safe keeping, and then lost in the fire in February 1865.[14] While there is a history of Clingman’s brigade, there are no histories of the 8^th, 31^st, 51^st, of 61^st North Carolina regiments. Maybe by looking into these regiments and others in the greater Charleston area, we can learn more about the North Carolina Hospital.

 

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[1] Official Records, Series 4, Vol. 2, 199-200.

[2] Calcutt, Richmond’s Wartime Hospitals.

[3] The Charleston Mercury January 5, 1864.

[4] Calcutt, South Carolina’s Confederate Hospitals, 24, 27.

[5] Smith, A Charlestonian’s Recollections, 91.

[6] The Charleston Daily Courier August 2, 1864.

[7] The Charleston Mercury August 15, 1863.

[8] The Daily Journal August 19, 1863.

[9] The Charleston Daily Courier September 8, 1863.

[10] The Greenville Enterprise September 10, 1863.

[11] The Biblical Recorder October 7, 1863.

[12] The Charleston Mercury November 27, 1863.

[13] The Charleston Mercury June 7, 1864.

[14] Calcutt, South Carolina’s Confederate Hospitals, 1.

Ephraim Clayton and the Asheville Armory

   Chances are, you have probably never heard of Ephraim Clayton. For many in Southern Appalachia, he is an important 19^th century carpenter and builder. Clayton was born in present-day Transylvania County, North Carolina, in 1804. His father, Lambert Clayton, was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. His mother was Sarah Davidson, and her parents had been killed by the Cherokee in 1776. We really don’t know much about Ephraim Clayton’s childhood, but by the 1830s, he was receiving commissions to construct buildings. These buildings included Asheville Baptist Church (1859); Asheville Presbyterian Church (ca.1847); Buncombe County Courthouse (1848); Caldwell County Courthouse (1843); Calvary Episcopal Church, Fletcher, NC (1859); John W. McElroy House, Burnsville, NC (ca.1845); Mars Hill College (1856-1857); Newton Academy, Asheville, NC (1857-1858); Polk County Courthouse (ca.1853); Ravenscroft School, Asheville, NC (ca.1840s); St. John-in-the-Wilderness Episcopal Church, Flat Rock, NC (1833-1834); Trinity Episcopal Church, Asheville, NC (1850); Tuttle’s Hotel, Lenoir, NC (ca.1843); War Ford Bridge, Asheville, NC (1856); and the Yancey County Courthouse (1840s), along with other buildings in Georgia and South Carolina.

   While Clayton often lived in the communities where he was constructing buildings, he considered Asheville his home. His obituary claimed that he was the first man to bring a steam-powered planing machine to western North Carolina. In 1850, he employed twenty-five men and owned seven slaves. By 1860, he owned eleven slaves, plus employing several free workmen. He also operated a saw and planing mill and a sash and blind factory.[1]

   Asheville was quite possibly the most pro-Confederate town in North Carolina in the 1860s (we’ll save that for a future post). Hundreds of Confederate soldiers had poured forth out of Asheville and surrounding Buncombe County. Governor Zebulon Baird Vance and his brother, Brigadier General Robert B. Vance, came from the area, as did Brigadier General Thomas L. Clingman. Asheville also served as the headquarters of the District of Western North Carolina. As early as July 1861, William L. Henry was writing Gov. Henry T. Clark with a proposal for establishing a plant to manufacture rifles for the Confederacy in Asheville. In August 1861, that idea began to come to fruition. That month, Col. Robert W. Pulliam, the Confederate Ordnance Bureau agent in Western North Carolina, began working with Ephraim Clayton and Dr. George Whitson. In January 1862 the company began producing rifles, and by November 1862, they employed 107 men. Due to the lack of a railroad, materials were sourced locally. That November, they had 200 rifles ready for shipment. Josiah Gorgas, chief of ordnance for the Confederate army, sent W.S. Downer to Asheville to inspect the rifles and the plant. Downer wrote back that while Whitson was a man of “general genius,” he had no “practical knowledge of mechanics.” The tools and machines being used were “makeshift,” and the rifles themselves “worthless.” 

Asheville News, April 12, 1862. 

  The Asheville Arsenal faced numerous challenges, from a lack of skilled workers to the threat of attack by Union forces or “disloyal persons.”  It was a combination of these that eventually drove the Confederate arsenal from Asheville. In January 1863, a locally-led raid occurred at Mars Hill, in Madison County, just north of Asheville. In September, Knoxville was captured by Federal forces. In October came a raid by Union force on Warm Springs in Madison County. In late October, the local commander ordered the machinery to be prepared for moving, which began in late November. The machinery was transported to Columbia, South Carolina. In the end, the factory produced some 900 rifles.[2]   Capt. Benjamin Sloan was assigned to command the armory, and Sloan sought to bring in new machinery and tools. He also constructed two new brick buildings to house the machines and tools. Ephraim Clayton was appointed as general manager, in charge of “all Carpenters work and control of teams and teamsters, wood choppers, Coal Burners and saw mill hands.” Undoubtedly, Clayton’s already-established factory, and the fact that the new arsenal buildings were on his land, played a role in his involvement. There were 123 workers by January 1863, although Sloan fired twenty of them that same month. The men working at the Arsenal were well paid and were exempt from conscription.

   It is unclear if Ephraim Clayton moved to Columbia or stayed in Asheville. His obituary states that his planing mill was destroyed by fire. This could have happened at the end of the war when Federal forces burned the two brick buildings constructed to house the Asheville Armory.[3] After the war, he operated an iron foundry in Asheville 1867 to 1878, while living in Transylvania County, helping to build the Spartanburg and Asheville Railroad and the Western North Carolina Railroad.[4] Clayton died on August 14, 1892, esteemed as “one of the best known citizens of Western North Carolina.”[5] Clayton was “a man of the strictest integrity, plain and unassuming, and universally respected by all for his admirable traits of character. He took a deep interest in Asheville’s progress, and was always foremost in any project that tended to the advancement of the city-a true public-spirited citizen.”[6] He is buried in the Clayton Family Cemetery, Buncombe County, North Carolina. 

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[1] https://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/people/P000070

[2] Gordon McKinney, “Premature Industrialization in Appalachia,” The Civil War in Appalachia, 227-241.

[3] Asheville Citizen Times, August 11, 1892.

[4] https://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/people/P000070

[5] The Asheville Democrat, August 14, 1892.

[6] Asheville Citizen Times, August 11, 1892.

Did Judah P. Benjamin draft North Carolina’s Ordinance of Secession?

   Joseph C. Sitterson, in his 1939 book, The Secession Movement in North Carolina, makes an interesting claim, that Judah P. Benjamin reportedly wrote North Carolina’s ordinance of secession.[1] Sitterson writes that Convention delegate Burton Craige introduced a the resolution at the request of Governor John W. Ellis. The simple ordinance “repealed and abrogated the ordinance of 1789 by which North Carolina had ratified the Constitution of the United States and declared the union between the state of North Carolina and the other states, under the title of ‘The United States of America’ dissolved.” Is there any truth to this?

Judah P. Benjamin

   Judah P. Benjamin is one of those interesting people in history. Born in 1811 in St. Croix, in what is now the United States Virgin Islands, his parents were Sephardic Jews. In 1813, the family moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, and then to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1821. Benjamin enrolled in Yale College in 1825, but did not graduate, and moved on to New Orleans where he eventually worked in a mercantile business, clerked in a law firm, tutored French Creoles in English, and eventually earned a law degree, being admitted to the bar in 1832 at the age of 21. Benjamin specialized in commercial law. In 1842 Benjamin won election to the Louisiana House of Representatives, then served in a Louisiana Constitutional Convention, was appointed a United States Attorney in New Orleans, served in the Louisiana State Senate, and in 1853, was elected a United States Senator. He was twice offered a place on the United States Supreme Court but declined both times. Benjamin remained a United States Senator until February 1861. When the Senate was not in session, he tried cases before the Supreme Court. Benjamin served as a Confederate Attorney General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State, and was with Jefferson Davis as the president moved through North Carolina and South Carolina at the close of the war. Benjamin escaped, fleeing to Great Britain, and becoming one of the leading barristers in the country before retiring to Paris where he died in 1884.

   At time the delegates were meeting in Raleigh to considered secession, Benjamin was serving as the first Confederate attorney general in Montgomery, Alabama.

   J.G. de R. Hamilton, in his book Reconstruction in North Carolina, tells us that North Carolina’s ordinance “was prepared by Judah P. Benjamin” and “brought to Raleigh from Montgomery by James Hines, a North Carolinian, and delivered to Gov. Ellis, who asked Burton Craige, the member from his county, to introduce it.”[2] Hamilton does not give a source for this information. Barrett, in his history of North Carolina and the War, leaves out this little piece of information. Just how Benjamin came to draft North Carolina’s ordinance of secession seems to be somewhat of a mystery.  

John W. Ellis

Turning to Governor Ellis’s papers, we find an interesting letter from former United States Senator Thomas L. Clingman. Writing from Montgomery on May 14, 1861, Clingman tells Ellis: “I enclose you drafts of Ordinances which I think ought to be adopted at once by our convention. I got Mr. Benjamin the Attorney General to draw them up and hope they will be put through on the 20^th.”[3] In Jeffrey’s biography of Clingman, we read that Ellis sent Clingman to Montgomery after the capture of Fort Sumter. Clingman’s job? To “negotiate North Carolina’s entrance into the Confederacy.” There is no mention of the Ordinances.[4] It is possible that Ellis and Clingman discussed the matter of the Ordinance prior to Clingman’s departure from Raleigh to Montgomery. At the same time, Clingman might have taken it upon himself to visit Benjamin and ask for some guidance regarding the Ordinances, and Benjamin wrote the Ordinances and gave them Clingman who gave them to Hines who caught a train to Raleigh. This begs another question: who was James Hines? Was he just a messenger? A quick search has not produced an identity. And yet another question: did Judah P. Benjamin play a role in any other Ordinances of Secession passed by the other Southern States?

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[1] Sitterson, The Secession Movement in North Carolina, 246-47, n.103.

[2] Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina, 29.

[3] Tolbert, The Papers of John W. Ellis, 2:50.

[4] Jeffrey, Thomas Lanier Clingman: Fire Eater from the Carolina Mountains, 162.  

Books on North Carolina's Confederate Generals

You've probably figured out that I like lists of books. For several years, I've kept a list of North Carolina counties and their published histories of the War. Well, below is a new list, a list of North Carolina-born general officers of the Confederacy (with one exception). There are several names not on this list, like James H. Lane or William Henry Chase Whiting. They were associated with North Carolina, but came from other states. There are also a couple who are buried in the Tar Heel state but who are not on this list, like William R. Boggs. He came after the war. The only exception that I have made is for Collett Leventhorpe. He was born in England, but when he moved to North Carolina (prior to the war), he never really lived any other place, and is buried in Caldwell County. I have also not included state-appointed generals, like John W. McElroy. These men are only Confederate-appointed generals.

Of the 46 men on this list, 26 have no material published on them, save brief pieces in Warner's Generals in Gray, Powell's Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, or Davis's The Confederate General (6 volumes). Of the 18 who do have biographies, three of those are just sketches, usually presented at a monument dedication or a memorial service. For me, that leaves 16 who have bios. Of that number, six have multiple biographies. Braxton Bragg has eight, William Dorsey Pender, Leonidas Polk, and Stephen Dodson Ramseur have four each, and James Johnston Pettigrew has three. Bryan Grimes had two, and the rest, one each.  

As always, this is a work in progress. If I missed someone, or some book, please let me know. At some point, I will probably update this list to include theses and dissertations, and then maybe articles.

Anderson, George Burgwyn, Brig. Gen.  (1831-1862)

            "A Private" Brigadier-General George Burgwyn Anderson (19--?)
Armistead, Louis Addision, Brig. Gen., (1817-1863)

Baker, Laurence Simmons, Brig. Gen. (1830-1907)

Barringer, Rufus, Brig. Gen. (1821-1895)

            Barringer, Fighting for General Lee (2016)
Barry, John D., Brig. Gen. (1838-1867)

Bragg, Braxton, General (1817-1876)

            Bragg, Braxton Bragg: Military Strategist (1998)

            Hallock, Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat, Vol. 2 (1991)

            Hay, Braxton Bragg and the Southern Confederacy (1925)

            Hess, Braxton Bragg: the Most Hated Man of the Confederacy (2016)

            Martin, General Braxton Bragg (2011)

            McWhiney, Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat Vol. 1 (1969)

            Seitz, Braxton Bragg, general of the Confederacy (1924)

            Stout, Reminiscences of General Braxton Bragg (1942)

Branch, Lawrence O'B., Brig. Ben. (1820-1862)
Bullock, Robert, Brig. Gen. (1828-1905)

Clingman, Thomas L., Brig. Gen. (1812-1897)

            Jeffrey, Thomas Lanier Clingman: Fire Eater from the Carolina Mountains (1998)

Cox, William R., Brig. Gen. (1832-1919)

            Spruill, A Sketch of the Life and Service of General William Ruffin Cox (1921)

Daniel Junius, Brig. Gen. (1828-1864)

Dockery, Thomas P., Brig. Gen. (1833-1898)

Forney, John H. Maj. Gen. (1829-1902)

            Daugette, The Life of Major General John H. Forney (1925?)
Forney, William H., Brig. Gen. (1823-1894)
Garrott, Isham W., Brig. Gen. (1816-1863)

Gatlin, Richard C., Brig. Gen. (1809-1896)

            Daddis,  Richard C. Gatlin and the Confederate Defense of Eastern North Carolina (2015)
Gilmer, Jeremy F., Maj. Gen. (1818-1883)

Gordon, James B. Brig. Gen. (1822-1864)

            Hartley, Stuart's Tar Heels (1996)
Govan, Daniel C., Brig. Gen. (1829-1911)

Grimes, Bryan, Maj. Gen. (1828-1880)

            Allen, Lee's Last Major General: Bryan Grimes of North Carolina

            Cowper, Extracts of Letters of Maj. Gen Bryan Grimes to his Wife (2014)

Hill, Daniel H., Lt. Gen. (1821-1889)

            Bridges, Lee's Maverick General: Daniel Harvey Hill (1991)

Hoke, Robert F., Maj. Gen. (1837-1912)

            Barefoot, General Robert F. Hoke: Lee's Modest Warrior (1996)

Holmes, Theophilus H., Lt. Gen. (1804-1880)

            Hilderman, Theophilus Hunter Holmes: A North Carolina General in the Civil War (2013)

Johnston, George D. Brig. Gen. (1832-1910)

Johnston, Robert D., Brig. Gen. (1837-1919)

Kirkland, William W., Brig. Gen. (1833-1915)

Leventhorpe, Collett, Brig. Gen. (18815-1889)

            Foley and Cole, Collett Leventhorpe, the English Confederate (2006)

Lewis, William G., Brig. Gen. (1835-1901)
MacRae, William, Brig. Gen. (1834-1882)

Martin, James G., Brig. Gen. (1819-1878)
McNair, Evander, Brig. Gen. (1820-1902)

Pender, William D., Maj. Gen. (1834-1863)

            Hassler, One of Lee's Best Men: The Civil War Letters of Gen. William D. Pender (1999)

            ----The General to His Lady: The Civil War Letters of W. D. Pender to Fanny Pender (1965)

            Longacre, General William Dorsey Pender: A Military Biography (2001)

            Willis, Confederate General William Dorsey Pender: The Hope of Glory (2013)
Pettigrew, James J., Brig. Gen. (1828-1963)

            Bauer, The Long Lost Journal of Confederate General James Johnston Pettigrew (2001)

            Wilson, Carolina Cavalier: Life and Mind of James Johnston Pettigrew (1990)

            Wilson, The Most Promising Man of the South... (1998)

Polk, Leonidas, Lt. Gen. (1806-1864)

            Parks, General Leonidas Polk, CSA (1992)

            Polk, Leonidas Polk; Bishop and General 2 volumes (1915)

            Robbins, The Bishop of the Old South: (2006)

            White, Confederate General Leonidas Polk: Louisiana's Fighting Bishop (2013)

Polk, Lucius E., Brig. Gen. (1833-1892)
Rains, Gabriel J. Brig. Gen. (1803-1881)

Ramseur, Stephen D., Maj. Gen. (1837-1864)

            Cox, Address on the Life and Character of.... Ramseur (1891)

            Gallagher, Stephen Dodson Ramseur: Lee's Gallant General (1995)

            Kundahl, The Bravest of the Brave: The Correspondence of Stephen D. Ramseur (2014)

            Schenck, Sketches of Maj. Gen. Stephen Dodson Ramseur (2015)

Ransom, Matt W., Brig. Gen. (1826-1904)

            Marlow, Matt W. Ransom, Confederate General from North Carolina (1996)

Ransom, Robert, Jr., Maj. Gen. (1828-1892)

Richardson, Robert V., Brig. Gen. (1820-1870)

Roberts, William P., Brig. Gen. (1841-1910)

Scales, Alfred M., Brig. Gen. (1827-1892)

            Conner, Address on Alfred Moore Scales (1907)

Toon, Thomas F., Brig. Gen. (1840-1902)
Ticker, William, Brig. Gen. (1827-1881)

Vance, Robert B., Brig. Gen. (1828-1899)

Wilcox, Cadmus M., Maj. Gen. (1824-1890)

            Patterson, From Blue to Gray (2001) 

What Happened to North Carolina's US Representatives and Senators During the War?

On the verge of the conflict in 1861, North Carolina had eight representatives in the US House, and two in the US Senate. Every state has two senators, but house numbers are determined by population. What happened to these men during the war?

William Nathan Harrell Smith was born in Murfreesboro, NC, in 1812 and graduated from Yale University in 1834. He returned to Murfreesboro to practice law. He held several local political offices before becoming a member of the both the NC House and Senate. Smith was elected as an Opposition Party candidate to the 36th Congress, and ran unsuccessfully for the speakership. He went on to serve in the Confederate Congress. After the war, he served as council for W. W. Holden during the 1871 impeachment trial, and as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, from 1878 to 1889. He died in November 1889 and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh.

Thomas Hart Ruffin was born in Louisburg, North Carolina, in September 1820. He was a graduate from the law school at the University of North Carolina in 1841 and practiced law for a time in Missouri. In 1853, he was elected as a Democrat to the US Congress and represented NC until March 1861. He served as a delegate to the provisional Confederate Congress in 1861. Ruffin raised a company of cavalry out of Wayne County, and was elected captain. That group became Company H, 1st North Carolina Cavalry. In June 1863, Ruffin was promoted to the rank of major and transferred to the field and staff of the 1st Cavalry. A month later, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In the meantime, he suffered a saber blow to the head at Gettysburg. Sometime around September 1863, Ruffin was promoted to colonel of the 1st Cavalry. At a skirmish at Auburn Mills, Virginia, on October 15, 1863, Ruffin was mortally wounded and captured. He died on October 18, 1863, and is buried in Louisburg, North Carolina.

Warren Winslow was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1810. He was a graduate of the University of North Carolina, and then studied law, practicing in Fayetteville. In 1854, Winslow was elected to the state senate, and elected as speaker. When Governor Reid accepted an appointment to the United States Senate, Winslow became acting governor, and is recognized as the 33rd governor of the state. Winslow then served in the US from 1855 to 1861. When Governor Ellis became ill, Winslow was a part of a three-man board appointed by the governor to advise him on military and naval matters. Winslow went on to represent Cumberland and Harnett Counties in the 1861 convention. Winslow died in Fayetteville in August 1862, and is buried at Cross Creek Cemetery.

Lawrence O'Bryan Branch was born in November 1820 near Enfield, Halifax County. He lived in Tennessee for a brief amount of time before being adopted by his uncle, John Branch. John Branch had already served in the General Assembly, and as governor of North Carolina (1817-1820). When Lawrence joined his uncle, he was living in Washington, D.C., serving as a United States Senator, and then later, as Secretary of the Navy under his friend Andrew Jackson. Lawrence grew up in Washington, D.C., and was tutored at one time by Salmon P. Chase. Lawrence attended the University of North Carolina for a while, eventually graduating first in his class at Princeton. He studied law in Nashville, Tennessee, where he also owned a newspaper. Branch was admitted to the bar in Florida, but married and moved back to Raleigh in 1852, practicing law and becoming president of the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad Company. Branch was elected as a Democrat to three terms in the US House, starting in 1855. He was not running again in 1860. He also declined a position of Secretary of the Treasury by President James Buchanan. Once North Carolina joined the Confederacy, Branch served as Quartermaster General for North Carolina, and then as colonel of the 33rd North Carolina Troops. He was appointed a brigadier general in November 1861, and in April 1862, his brigade joined the army in Virginia. Branch was killed at the battle of Sharpsburg on September 17, 1863. He is buried in the Old City Cemetery in Raleigh.

John Gilmer was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, in November 1805. He studied in local schools, taught school, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1832. Gilmer was a member of the State Senate from 1846 to 1856, and in 1856, was an unsuccessful Whig candidate for governor. He served in the US House from 1857 to March 1861 as a member of the American, and later Opposition parties. He was considered by Lincoln for a cabinet position. Gilmer served in the Secession Convention. In November 1863, he won an uncontested race as a representative to the Second Confederate Congress, and was chairman of the Committee on Elections. He opposed many of the laws that advanced the powers of the central government, and was an active peace advocate, persuading Davis to send a delegation to Hampton Roads to talk to Lincoln. Gilmer supported Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction program after the war. He died in Greensboro in May 1868, and is buried in the Presbyterian Church Cemetery behind the Greensboro Museum of History.

James Madison Leach was born in January 1815 in Randolph County, North Carolina. He attended the Caldwell Institute in Greensboro, and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1838, going on to study law. Leach practiced law in Lexington, North Carolina, and served in the General Assembly from 1848 to 1858. In 1859, Leach was a representative in the US House. Once the war commenced, he served in the 21st North Carolina, and then as a member of the Second Confederate Congress. Leach is probably the most famous peace advocated in the Confederate Congress. According to one sketch, Leach "fought all administration programs. He voted to override every presidential veto and approved resolutions declaring Secretaries Benjamin, Memminger, and Regan incompetent... by April 1865, he was urging North Carolina to begin separate state negotiations." After the war, Leach served four terms in the NC Senate, and in 1871 to 11875, in the US House. He died in Lexington on June 1, 1891, and is buried in Hopewell Cemetery.

Francis Burton Craige was born near Salisbury in March 1811. Craige graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1829, edited the Carolina Watchman, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1832, and served in the NC House before being elected as a Democrat to the US Congress, serving from 1853 to 1861. Craige was a delegate to the secession convention in May 1861, introducing the Ordinance of Secession. He was also a delegate to the Confederate Provisional Congress, supporting the central government in their effort to win the war. He declined to run for the regular Confederate Congress, and apparently retired from public life. Craig died in Concord on December 30, 1875, and is buried in the Old English Cemetery in Salisbury.

Zebulon Baird Vance was born in Buncombe County May 30, 1830. He was the youngest of the North Carolina delegation sitting in the US House in March 1861. Vance was educated at Washington College, and then at the University of North Carolina. He began practicing law in Asheville in 1852, and was elected county solicitor. He served in the NC House  in 1854-1856, and in the US House 1858-1861. Vance was elected captain of a company from Buncombe in May 1861, and then colonel of the 26th North Carolina Troops, in August 1861. He led the 26th Regiment through the battle of New Bern and Seven Days. On being elected governor in August 1862, Vance resigned his commission and led the state through the war years, until being arrested on his birthday in Statesville in 1865. After the war, he practiced law, again becoming governor of North Carolina (1876-1878), and then serving in the US Senate from 1878 until his death in Washington, D.C., in 1894. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Asheville. Vance is North Carolina's most honored politician, with a state historic site, several monuments, and a host of biographies.

In the US Senate were Thomas L. Clingman and Thomas Bragg. Surprisingly, both had only served a couple of years prior to the start of the war.

Thomas Lanier Clingman, the "Prince of Politicians," was born in 1812 in Yadkin County, North Carolina. He graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1832, and began practicing law in Huntsville in 1834. Clingman was elected to the NC House in 1835, and then a year later, moved to Asheville. In 1840, he represented the area in the NC Senate. He was elected as a Whig in 1843 to the US House, but was defeated for re-election in 1845 (possibly having something to do with his duel with William Lowndes Yancey of Alabama.) Clingman again served in the US House from 1847 to 1858, and in 1858 to 1861, in the US Senate. At the start of the War, Clingman was elected colonel of the 25th North Carolina and later commanded a brigade composed of the 8th, 31st, 52st, and 61st Infantry regiments. His brigade bounced around between the defenses in eastern North Carolina and those in Virginia. Clingman never regained public office after the war, although he was frequently in Washington D.C, sitting in the visitors' gallery in the Senate. He worked as a tireless promoter of western North Carolina, and mined in the area, looking for silver in present-day Avery County. Clingman's Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is named in his honor. Clingman died in Morganton North Carolina in 1897, and is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, not far from the grave of Zebulon Vance.

Thomas Bragg was the older brother of Confederate General Braxton Bragg. Thomas was born in November 1810 in Warrenton, and studied at a military academy in Middleton, Connecticut, now known as Norwich University. He was admitted to the bar in 1833 and commenced practice in Jackson, North Carolina. He served a term in the NC House (1842-1843) and was elected governor for two terms (1855 to 1859), before being appointed to the US Senate, serving from 1859 to 1861. Jefferson Davis appointed Bragg as Confederate attorney general in 1861, and he served until 1862. Bragg continued to practice law until his death in 1872. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh. 

Thomas Lanier Clingman: Fire Eater From the Carolina Mountains

Been traveling as of late, and I’ve been reading – still continuing my “tour” of books relating to North Carolina and the War. I’ve finished two since posting that last review on the biography of Governor Clark.

The first book I finished was Thomas E. Jeffrey’s Thomas Lanier Clingman: Fire Eater From the Carolina Mountains (University of Georgia Press, 1998). This is actually a re-read for me. When this book came out in 1998, I checked out a copy from the library and spent several days within its pages. I recently acquired my own copy (not a cheap book, either), and enjoyed my re-read. There is not much to say about Jeffrey’s book except that it is a really, really good biography. Jeffrey explores every facet of Clingman’s life, from his early days in the US House and Senate, to his services during the War, to his work as a promoter and inventor, along with his quest after the war to regain his position in the Senate. Clingman was born 1812 in Surry County, and was a graduate from the University of North Carolina. Clingman’s greatest claim-to-fame, at least the one he is best remembered for, came during the pre-war period of his life. Clingman got into an argument with one of his former professors, Dr. Elisha Mitchell, over who had measured the highest peak in the Black Mountains in Yancey County. Mitchell went back to re-measure the peak, and fell to his death in the process. Today, Mt. Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi, bears his name, while Clingman’s name is attached to a peak in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Clingman is hailed as “Prince of Politicians” and in 1889, “one of the most remarkable men who have figured in politics in North Carolina…” Clingman was a rival of North Carolina’s more famous son, Zebulon Baird Vance. Clingman died in Morganton in 1897 and was originally buried in Concord. He was later reinterred in Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, not far from the grave of Zeb Vance. One thing that does puzzle me is this: Jeffrey’s title proclaims Clingman as a “Fire-Eater” Yet in the last paragraph of the conclusion, Jeffrey’s states that “Clingman was never a fire eater in the Rhett-Yancey mold.” If that is true, then it is an interesting sub-title. You’ll need to read the book to judge for yourself if Clingman was truly a fire-eater.

The next review will be on Travis’s history of the Rowan Artillery. I’m currently reading Escott’s North Carolinians in the Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction.