East Hill Cemetery, Bristol

Yesterday, we drove over to Bristol, TN/VA to have lunch with some family passing through. After lunch, we paid a visit to the East Hill Cemetery. Back last fall, I was speaking to the SCV Camp in Hampton, TN, and got some information on the cemetery.

East Hill Cemetery was begun in 1857 to meet the needs of the community of Bristol Tennessee-Virginia. During the Civil War, Bristol was the site of the junction of the East Tennessee & Virginia Railway.... About 1862, the Confederate Medical Department established hospitals in Bristol. Because of its strategic location and its railway, Bristol soon became a hospital hub for Confederate soldiers brought from battles for treatment. Those that did not survive were buried at East Hill, including many that were unknown.

The number of Confederate burials at East Hill were variously estimated to range from slightly over one-hundred twenty to nearly one hundred eighty. Recently, ongoing research has revealed that the number is closer to three-hundred and represents the largest location of Confederate graves between Knoxville, TN, and Roanoke, Virginia. Nearly every state in the Confederacy is represented. Furthermore, work by author and historian Gary Rose has helped to identify the names of over forty soldiers previously unknown.

Lieutenant William E. Allen and Lieutenant Robertson Bryan, who were two of the "Immortal 600" are buried here. James Keeling, the "Horatius of the South," who successfully defended the bridge at Strawberry Plains with the loss of his arm has a memorial here. Billy Wood, the last survivor of the young VMI Cadets who fought in the Battle of New Market on May 15, 1864, is buried here. The commanders of the 63rd and 62nd Tennessee, Colonel Abram Fulkerson and Lt. Colonel William Parker also lie here.

The battles fought by these men cover the history of the war. Captain Davidson is credited with firing the first artillery shot at First Manassas. The 37th Virginia, with many men buried at East Hill, was a part of Jackson’s famous "Stonewall Brigade." Men buried here fought at Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Spottsylvania, the Wilderness, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chickamauga and Atlanta. They were there with Lee at Appomattox and at the end of the Army of Tennessee with Joe Johnston.

Among those buried here are members of the 29th NCT, the 39th NCT, the 57th NCT, the 72nd NCT, the 9th Batt. NC Reserves (Senior?), and Thomas’s Legion. I am hoping to get in touch with the some of the folks who are working on a Confederate monument for the cemetery and see if we can get those names.

The picture here is of the grave of James Keeling.

Ideas

It was great to see many of you this past Saturday and Sunday in Hickory and in Lenoir. It was also good to talk to Skip Smith of the 26th NCT.

I’ve been writing for about a decade now, full time for the past two and a half years, and the request for books never ceases to amaze for me. This past Saturday at Barnes and Noble, I got three requests to do something about Alexander County, and one request to do something on Burke County. The folks in Hanover County, Virginia, said last December that I could write about Hanover anytime, and the requests for more regimental histories is almost overwhelming. I think I’ve been fairly prolific over the past decade - my eighth book, a collection of essays on Avery County, will be released in May/June of this year. And, I’m working on that history of the 58th North Carolina right now. While I keep of list of ideas, maybe after the book on the 58th NCT is done I should take requests and put up a poll....

It was great to be with Tim Cole and Brad Foley, authors of the book on Collett Leventhorpe, this past Sunday.

Book signings

Just wanted to let everyone know that I will be at the Barnes and Noble in Hickory tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon, the Caldwell Historical Museum in Lenoir on Sunday afternoon, and in Mt. Airy at Ryan's Steakhouse for a discussion on the battle of Hanover Court House on Tuesday evening. I'd be happy to see you there!

Trust seeks help buying historic land

Folks - found this in the Raleigh News and Observer. If you are not a member of the Civil War Preservation Trust, please consider joining - they do great work. Not only are they seeking donations for this project, but also the 208 - Slaughter Pen at Fredericksburg. The later was ground fought over by Jame's H. Lane's brigade of North Carolinians.





Trust seeks help buying historic land
Acquisition boosts preservation

Peggy Lim, Staff Writer
The Civil War Preservation Trust recently appealed to its members across the country -- help us save about 188 acres at Bentonville Battlefield.

The trust closed on the land in December but still needs to raise $80,000 to get a $720,000 match from federal and state grants to pay for it.

The Battle of Bentonville, March 19-21, 1865, was the largest fought in North Carolina and one of the last clashes in the closing days of the Civil War. In 1993, Congress declared Bentonville one of the 11 most important battlefields for preservation. But until the late 1990s, only about 244 acres of its sprawling 6,000 had been saved.

Landowners, with deep roots in the southern Johnston County community, have helped turn that around in recent years. Total acreage preserved at Bentonville has grown to 1,103, said site manager Donny Taylor. In 2006 alone, the Civil War Preservation Trust was able to acquire 300 acres at Bentonville.

"Bentonville is one of the flagships of battlefield preservation," said Mary K. Goundrey, a spokeswoman for the trust. Only a few battlefields in Mississippi and Virginia have more preserved land, Goundrey said.

The acquisitions have given visitors to the Bentonville site a more vivid experience, Taylor said. The park added descriptive markers to a driving tour.

"Sitting at home, you can imagine," he said. "But here, you can get a good idea of what the troops had to fight through -- open fields, woodland."

History buffs are particularly excited about the trust's latest acquisition. The purchase gets land used on the third day of the battle, which saw "Mower's Charge" -- when the Union side captured the field headquarters of Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston.

Charlie Davis, 64, who grew up on part of the 188-acre tract, said he sold the land as a memorial to his mother.

"It was her lifeblood," Davis said. She and Davis' grandmother had been active in early grass-roots fundraising efforts in the 1950s to buy a 51-acre tract, including the historic Harper House, which served as a hospital during the battle. His mother worked in a gift shop on the site until her health declined in the mid-1990s, he said.

Residents also sell to preserve a quieter way of life -- preventing hog farms, subdivisions or mobile home parks from moving in, said Philip Shaw, president of the Bentonville Battlefield Historical Association.

"It just stays farmland, and that's the main objective," said Tim Westbrook, 50 and a tobacco farmer, while tinkering with a greenhouse lawn mower on part of the Mower's Charge battleground. "You don't own it anymore, but you know it's going to be looked after."
Westbrook, who continues to live and farm on battlefields, sold about 80 acres to the Civil War Preservation Trust in June.

"When the state takes land, Bentonville is not going to grow in population," he said. "But we're willing to do that to keep it like it is."

Westbrook makes exception for the crowds, noisy cannons and hundreds of horses that turn out for major battle re-enactments once every five years. The one in 2005 drew about 40,000 spectators and 4,000 re-enactors. The events raise money for the community's volunteer fire department, which handles concessions.

And Westbrook said, "It helps unite the community."

Staff writer Peggy Lim can be reached at 836-5799 or plim@newsobserver.com.

One more from Blandford

I thought I would share one other photograph from my trip to Blandford. I took this, from the car, while leaving the cemetery. No, I don’t have the soldiers name and no, he was probably not from North Carolina. But I thought the light was good.

Pvt. John Barefoot

A couple of days ago, I mentioned a lone, marked North Carolina grave at Blandford Church Cemetery. That marker is for John Q. Barefoot. He was "born in Johnson County where he resided as a farmer prior to enlisting in Sampson County at the age of 35." Barefoot enlisted (conscripted?) On May 12, 1862, in Company B, 56th North Carolina Troops. He was a private. On November 29, 1862, he was admitted to a hospital in Petersburg, where on December 8, 1862, he died of "cont[inued] febris." There were five other Barefoots in Company B.

Blandford Church Cemtery

Last week, I was in Virginia for a book signing. On my way home Thursday, I stopped at Blandford Church Cemetery in Petersburg. I have not been in the cemetery for several years, probably back in the late 1990s when I was working on the book on the 37th NCT.

I mainly went to photograph interesting gravestones for a class on cemetery iconography that I teach occasionally at local community colleges and historical societies, and I found several good tombstones to add to my collection of images.

I have visited many cemeteries in the past decade. Being at Blandford, and standing in the large, empty field where 30,000 Confederate soldiers are buried is a very humbling moment.
While there is no documented number of Confederates buried at Blandford, the City of Petersburg has maintained for over a century that over 30,000 Confederate soldiers are buried within the confines of the cemetery. Most of these men died in the last year of the war, when Meade’s army (under the watchful eye of Grant) encircled Petersburg and slowly squeezed the life out of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Blandford Church itself was constructed in 1735-1737, but stopped being a church in the early1800s. During the war, the windows-less brick building was used as a hospital. In the early 1900s, the church became a Confederate memorial chapel, with Tiffany stained glass windows from the different former Confederate states.

There is a good chance that if you had a North Carolina ancestor who was killed during the Petersburg Campaign, that he was interred at Blandford. Many of the Confederates who died during battle were first buried on the battlefields, and later re- interred at Blandford following the war.

However, of the 30,000+ Confederates buried in the cemetery, only 2,000-3,000 are known by name.

After you pass through the large memorial arch, there is a North Carolina section. (Towards the back, right before the curve). There is only one grave actually marked in this section: Pvt. John O. Barefoot, of Company B, 56th North Carolina Troops.

Everyone should visit Blandford if you have a chance: lots of good gravestone art, the beautiful stained glass windows, and to reflect as you stand amongst the graves of 30,000 Confederate soldiers.

26th NCT monument vandalized

Greetings folks - I found this article from the New Bern Sun Journal this morning. This is just tragic.

CIVIL WAR MONUMENT IN NEW BERN VANDALIZED TWICE
Memorial went up just days before Thanksgiving 2006
Francine Sawyer /
Sun Journal Staff

March 2, 2007 - 12:00AM A Civil War memorial marks the area where Confederate and Union soldiers fought during the Battle of New Bern in 1862. Now the fight is on to stop vandalism of the 11 1/2-ton granite monument.

The New Bern Historical Society has been working for the past seven years to make the monument, located near Taberna, a part of the New Bern Battlefield Park. Mark Magnum, chairman of the battlefield committee, said someone used a hammer to chip at the monument last week. Thursday, he found someone had written profane language on it. "It's awful," he said. Magnum said the $45,000 monument went up just days before Thanksgiving last year. He said the amount of monetary damage to the monument is still being assessed.

The North Carolina 26th Monument commemorates the Civil War Battle of New Bern. That battle will be marked at a 145th anniversary celebration beginning March 10.

Magnum reported the first vandalism to police and updated them with a phone call Thursday on the latest incident. Anyone with information about the vandalism can call the New Bern police at 672-4100 or Crime Stoppers, which offers a reward, at 633-5141.

War-time bread riots

There was an article today in the Salisbury Post about the Bread Riot there in 1863. There was at least one other female led riot in North Carolina during the war, this one in Burnsville in April 1864. I wonder if the idea behind the Salisbury riot led to the one in Yancey County?




Shortage of food items resulted in Bread Riot of 1863

A bread riot in Salisbury? Oh, come on, now. Who would ever consider a riot over bread, for heavens sake? I mean, we've already had to throw away the peanut butter and now the bread?
But don't worry. Throw away the peanut butter if you want to, but there's no reason right now to get rid of your bread.

Possibly the peanut butter problem prompted Post reader Tammy Ramey to bring Salisbury's Bread Riot to our attention. Not that she was planning a bread riot of her own, but she apparently thought it was interesting enough to share with other readers.

Salisbury's Bread Riot, probably its first and only, happened March 18, 1863, when the streets of Salisbury were invaded by a group of about 50 determined local women, identified only as wives and mothers of Confederate soldiers. And the Carolina Watchman, Salisbury's newspaper of that day, was quick to let citizens know about "A Female Raid."

"Between 40 and 50 soldiers' wives, followed by a numerous train of curious female observers," the Watchman reported, "made an attack on several of our business men last Wednesday, whom they regarded as speculators in the necessaries of life."

The women believed that local merchants had been profiteering by raising the prices of necessary foods and demanded that the merchants sell these goods at government prices.
But the merchants refused, prompting the women to break down one shop door with hatchets and threaten other storekeepers.

As stated earlier, the newspaper described the event as a "Female Raid" and added that it netted the women 23 barrels of flour as well as quantities of molasses, salt and even $20 in cash.
But Salisbury wasn't the only place that had a "bread riot."

A food riot in Richmond, Va., also in 1863, was more widely known, and both are dramatic evidence of the stresses on local life brought on by the Civil War, according to the University of North Carolina's "This Month in North Carolina History Archives."

"Volunteers for the Confederate army from Salisbury and surrounding Rowan County at the beginning of the war were by and large young, unmarried men," the UNC article read.
But by 1862 the demand for fresh troops brought about the increasing enlistment of older men with wives and families.

Rowan had a large number of small farms, and when a husband or father left to fight the war, those farms suffered a serious economic loss.

"The failure of the county's attempt to provide for soldiers' families also contributed to the hardship."

But the women who participated in the incident were never prosecuted, which indicated their neighbors understood and sympathized.

And the Carolina Watchman criticized the county commissioners who failed to provide adequate help for the soldiers' families, not the women. They should, the article said, "go, all blushing with shame for the scene enacted in our streets on Wednesday last."

By then the scene was over.

But not its memory.

In fact, members of a group of like-minded people have recently organized a co-op named — how's this for a long memory? — the Bread Riot Co-op.

Nobody's planning a bread riot, but there's nothing like a good story, and a true one focused on buying locally and eating organic foods to make sure people remember and support the new co-op.

Old Forts Found on Roanoke Island

Greetings folks! I switch this account over to the new "Google" on Saturday and I’m just now getting it to work again.

This article about the discovery of an old Fort on Roanoke Island appeared in the Otter Banks Sentinel this past weekend. Really exciting news.

Ft. Raleigh? New find on Roanoke Island creates stir
BY SANDY SEMANS SENTINEL STAFF

Scott Dawson, a native of Hatteras Island and now a resident of Colington, has shared the location of a discovery he made on National Park Service property with that agency, which has now secured the area and posted surveillance to insure that intruders don't disturb the site.

Doug Stover, park historian of the Park Service, said that park officials think that the site may be the remains of Fort Blanchard, a Civil War fort.

But if proven correct in his beliefs, Dawson will be the envy of many archaeologists who have spent their careers in the search of the long-lost Ft. Raleigh, Ralph Lane's 1585 fort on Roanoke Island.

Dawson located the site on Feb. 6 and shared his findings with the Sentinel on the following day. To ensure the preservation of the site, it was agreed at that time to alert the National Park Service, and that the Outer Banks Sentinel would delay writing about it until officials had time to examine and secure the site.

A call was placed to Stover by this reporter to make arrangements for Dawson to take officials to the area. Since then, the site which includes earthworks, trenches and embankments, has been visited by several interested parties, including NPS officials, head of the Lost Colony Center for Science and Research, Fred Willard and Dawson. During one of those visits, Dawson, under a permit issued by the NPS, used a metal detector and, he said, there were numerous "hits," most of which indicated silver down under the layers of dirt.

"You wouldn't find this much silver at a Civil War site," said Dawson who is a Civil War historian. "What was interesting about using the metal detector is that it never registered lead or zinc, the two most common hits one gets when combing over a Civil War site, due to the bullets being made of lead or occasionally zinc."

Dawson agreed that there is probably a Civil War encampment on the top of the site, but said that he believes the encampment is on top of the 1585 Ft. Raleigh.

"Through careful analysis of the primary sources of the 16th century voyages," said Dawson, "I found two sentences from two separate first-hand accounts that gave me minor clues as to the location of the fort.

"Later, I found vague references to the fort's location in regimental histories from various Civil War first-hand accounts. They gave me enough confidence that I narrowed the location down to one of two places.

"Both places contained fresh water according to detailed maps from the 1700's. I decided to find where the fresh water sources used to be and then walk in a spiral pattern from them until I was at a radius of 100 meters. It didn't take that long. On Feb. 6, on my way to one of locations I had narrowed it down to, I found deep earthworks. I took some pictures and continued to search the area. Then I found more trenches cutting 90 degree angles at times and forming a large enclosure.
"I also found large square holes as well as smaller ones that formed patterns."

Dawson's primary sources for locating the site were documents written almost three centuries apart.

According to Dawson, during the Civil War, the Union Army's 27th Massachusetts camped out on top of Ft. Raleigh. He obtained that information, in part, from a letter written by William Derby, a soldier in the 27th. Derby also wrote that guards were posted to keep vandals out of the area which they were told was the original Ft. Raleigh.

"This is all over their [written] regimental history," said Dawson. "However, no one knew where they camped. Colonel Green, a Confederate commander in charge of the 2nd North Carolina, landed at Wiers Point at the end of the battle on Feb. 8, 1862. He arrived just in time to surrender because the fight was already over, but before he did, he had his men throw all their guns and equipment into a ravine -- most likely the one that is on Wiers Point since that is where he landed and surrendered.

"On the morning of February 9th, the 27th Massachusetts found these guns, and the record says they were in a ravine close by. So I went to that ravine and looked all over the place starting with a point of land that runs out into the marsh because, in John White's account, he says that in 1590 he went to a point of land opposite Dasamonquepue, which is an Indian town in Manns Harbor.

"So I went to the point of land next to the ravine south of Wiers Point. In John White's account, it never says why he went to that point of land. Only after he went there did he then round the northern tip to the settlement. Obviously, the settlement was not inside the fort or they would not have built a palisade around it.

"Also in 1587, when they are looking for Grenville's 15 men, they searched for a day and then took the boat to the fort the following day. He probably went to the settlement and after [finding] no sign of the men, then went to the fort where barracks or a few more houses were.

"There are lots of points of land on the Dasamonquepeu side of Roanoke, but the Civil War stuff narrowed that down for me. The presence of fresh water narrowed it down further."

Stover said that the next phase in the NPS investigation will be to scan the area after clearing away some of the brush. And in March, NPS archeologist Bennie Keel will visit the site to make his own preliminary assessment.

In the meantime, until further information is available, Ft. Raleigh remains a mystery. Although in the future the NPS may partner with private archaeologists on the project, currently it is a Park Service project.sandy@obsentinel.com 480-2234

I wonder whatever happened to....

Back in 1998 or 1999, I was combing through the Compiled Service Records for the 37th North Carolina Troops in preparation for writing that book. I came across this entry for Samuel S. Ferguson, first (or orderly) sergeant for Company F: "In arrest for murder charges, January - February 1865."

Ferguson was born in Wilkes County, North Carolina, ca.1841. He was a farmer prior to enlisting in the "Western Carolina Stars" on September 24, 1861. He was mustered in as a private. The "Stars" became Company F, 37th North Carolina Troops on November 20, 1861. Ferguson was promoted to corporal on December 1, 1862, and to sergeant in March-August 1863, and finally to first sergeant on May 1, 1864. He was present or accounted for until January-February 1865 when he was arrested. Ferguson surrendered with the rest of his comrades on April 9, 1865.

I was never able to find out who Ferguson was charged with killing, nor what happened to him after the war. Was he released from arrest, or was he tagging along with the regiment as they made their way to Appomattox? I was also unable to find out what happened to Ferguson after the war. He seems to have... disappeared. Maybe there was something to those charges that forced him to flee from the area.

The compiled service records are full of those kinds of little mysteries.

North Carolina and Secession

A couple of days ago, I finished reading The Secession Movement in North Carolina written by Joseph C. Sitterson and published in 1939. This was the first time that I had read the book after having owned it for almost a year. I pulled out a few quotes for readers, all written between November 1860 and May 1861:


"Who can prepare for a declaration of independence, appealing to a candid world for its approbation and sympathy, upon the ground that we have been outvoted in an election in which we took the chances of success, and a candidate has been elected who, however obnoxious, we have deemed unworthy to compete with us for our votes?" – North Carolina Standard November 17, 1860.

Lincoln’s election "means a sweeping away of all guaranties of State equality in the Union–... It means that slave property is to be excluded from the Territories, and new slave States from the Union. –it means that the whole influence of the Federal Government is to be cast into the scale of opposition to the institutions of our section of the Union...
It means, further, that while all this is to be done, we are compelled to pay a tribute in the shape of a high protective Tariff, which tribute is to swell the wealth and insolence of our oppressors." – North Carolina Standard November 15, 1860.

The result in Black Republican rule will be "riots between the different classes of our white population, our whole social system convulsed in the agonies of dissolution,... the whole world against us in sentiment, and our own government our most bitter and unrelenting foe–great God, what hope would there be? As we stood at bay, frenzied, maddened, but despairing, with our wives and children clinging to us pale and panic stricken–death itself would be a refuge." – Wilmington Journal January 10, 1861.

"People of North Carolina, shall this programme be carried out? Will you suffer yourselves to be spit upon in this way? Are you submissionist to the dictations of South Carolina?... Are you to be called cowards because you do not follow the crazy lead of that crazy state?" – Wilmington Herald December 1860.

"Remember, sir, the South has no share in this copartnership. The Northeast is to get the tariff; the Northwest the Pacific railroad and the homestead bill; and the Republicans, or Abolitionists, are to get anti-slavery.... The sagacious men of the South see the danger; and sooner than submit to be cheated and plundered in this mode, with the prospect in the future of the abolition of slavery and the utter destruction of their section, they are coming resolutely into the struggle." –Thomas Clingman, Congressional Globe.

On Lincoln’s inaugural address "It is deceptive. It coats with the semblance of peace and friendship what smells of gore and hate. It is, in short, such a declaration of sentiments as should and will bring every Southern man to his feet." – Wilmington Journal March 13, 1861.

"Freeman of North Carolina, awake! arise! and throw off the yoke of the oppressor." – North Carolina Whig April 9, 1861

"Civil war can be glorious news to none but demons, or thoughtless fools, or maddened men." – B. F. Moore to his daughter, April 15, 1861.

Lincoln "could have devised no scheme more effectual than the one he had pursued, to overthrow the friends of Union here... I am left no other alternative but to fight for or against my section. I can not hesitate. Lincoln has made us a unit to resist until we repel our invaders or die." – Jonathan Worth, May 13, 1861.

New Books

I’ve received three new books in the past week to help with my research on the 58th North Carolina Troops. They are: Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town [Knoxville] in the American Civil War by Robert T. McKenzie; Contested Borderland: The Civil War in Appalachian Kentucky and Virginia by Brian D. McKnight and The Terrible Time: The Civil War in Kentucky’s Bell, Knox, Laurel, and Whitley Counties by Wayne Taylor. I am looking forward to reading these.

The 58th North Carolina spent its first 13 months of service in east Tennessee (with a couple of forays into Kentucky). It was the 58th NC’s Colonel Palmer who was placed in charge of the recently captured Cumberland Gap in September 1862 as the rest of the Confederate army marched north to do battle. I am really looking forward to reading these books and maybe even expanding my writing about the area beyond the 58th North Carolina Troops.
Other North Carolina regiments, like the 62nd and 64th North Carolina Troops, were also at Cumberland Gap.

Appalachia has interested me for sometime. My own ancestors went from western North Carolina, through Cumberland Gap, and into eastern Kentucky not long before the Civil War. And, Cumberland Gap National Park has always been a great stopping point as we travel to my wife’s parents’ home in Berea. I’ve spent a lot of time in the area (even seen the Glacier Girl) and I look forward to returning soon.

Davidson, NC

Ken Knouf wrote a few days ago asking what I liked about Davidson.

I think Davidson is an ideal place - it is a small town, but has culture and history. If I had to live in an "urban" area, I think Davidson would make a good place. Davidson reminds me of Banner Elk, with Lees-McRae College, which is not far from where I live.

And, it has history, mostly associated with the college. No, no large scale battles were waged on the grounds, etc. The school did remain open during the war, and some of the students were wounded soldiers. Federal soldiers did make a visit in May 1865. "They broke open the doors and windows of the recitation rooms and chapel and did damage to apparatus and buildings amounting to eight hundred dollars."

We’ve already mentioned that Confederate General D. H. Hill is buried in the cemetery. Hill taught mathematics at Davidson College before the war. A good description of Hill’s life can be found here: http://www.cmhpf.org/personalities/DHHill.html

But that history goes beyond just the war years. Woodrow Wilson was once a student at Davidson, before going to Princeton; the school was a leader in x-ray technology; student Wilson P. Mills was a Rhodes scholar; Dr. C. Alphonso Smith, founder of the Virginia Folklore Society; Vareen Bell, novelist; and future North Carolina governors Robert B. Glenn, James E. Holshouser, and James G. Martin were all students.

All that, not to mention the connection with Peter Stuart Ney, alleged to be Marshall Michael Ney of Napoleon’s army, who designed the school motto: Alenda Lux Ubi Orta Libertas
(Let Learning Be Cherished Where Liberty Has Arisen)

Confederate graves at Bentonville

I read recently that a mass grave of Confederate soldiers has been discovered at Bentonville. You can read the story at:
http://www.wilsondaily.com/Wil_region/Local_News/301651443772833.php

I was at Bentonville this past September, conducting research for my book on the 58th North Carolina. While there, I took the picture on the right of the first Confederate monument erected at Bentonville in March 1895, 30 years after the battle.

Will the first real KIA please stand up

For decades, we as North Carolinians have been proud of the fact the first soldier killed in battle was fighting in a North Carolina regiment. Henry Lawson Wyatt was a Virginia native, but was living in Edgecombe County when the war broke out. The 19-year-old Wyatt volunteered to serve in Company A, 1st North Carolina Volunteers. On June 10, 1861, he was killed at the battle of Big Bethel Church, Virginia. Wyatt was heralded as a hero and given a hero’s burial in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. His tombstone reads "In Memory of the First Confederate Soldier Who Was Killed in Action..."

Wyatt was further memorialized in 1912 by a monument on the grounds of the capital in Raleigh. The monument is a large bronze of Wyatt with musket in hand, moving toward the battle. This monument also states that Wyatt was the "First Confederate Soldier to Fall in Battle in the War Between the States."

It would seem that Wyatt’s claim is now being challenged. In the November - December 2006 issue of Confederate Veteran (which I confess, I’m just now beginning to get time to read) Robert E. Reyes writes that William R. Clark was "The first Confederate soldier killed in the War Between the States."

Reyes writes that Clark "had been recruited in Baltimore by Artillery Captain William Dorsey Pender, CSA, and that he had signed enlistment papers and accepted a bounty and was awaiting transportation" Before he could get transferred south, Clark was one of the men killed on April 19, 1861, in the draft riots in Baltimore, where a mob attacked elements of the 6th Massachusetts Volunteers. The Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, reported on Saturday, April 20, 1861, that William Clark – age 20 years was instantly killed at the corner of Pratt and South Streets by a Minnie ball which entered on the right side of the eye and passing through the head came out the other side. He had recently enlisted in the Southern Confederate Army and expected to have left in a few days."

Reyes then goes on to write that he had taken "a query on William R. Clark as being officially in the Confederate States Regular Army.... to the US Army Center of Military History at Fort McNair...." and also "to the Museum of the Confederacy Library in Richmond, Virginia" "Both institutions came to the same conclusion that he was in the Confederate States of America Regular Army."

While Mr. Reyes has done a good job with his research, I for one still have numerous questions. Who was William R. Clark? Where was he from? Who were his parents? What was his job? On what date did he sign those papers? Had he been properly mustered into Confederate service? Signing enlistments papers does not mean that a he had been properly mustered into service. Also, the distinction between the two men may also lie in the fact that Wyatt was killed in battle, while Clark was killed in act of civil disobedience, flinging rocks at Union soldiers. Does this lessen his sacrifice, or does it just make it a different kind of sacrifice?

I guess I’m just not quite ready to give up on Henry Wyatt.

Corrections on Mrs. Jackson

Brian Downey brought up some interesting points on Mrs. Jackson the other day. Mr. Downey brought to my attention that it appears the Mrs. Dr. Sloop was mistaken in her recollections in regards to the birth of Anna Morrison Jackson. I dug out a couple of books, Robertson’s bio on Jackson and the newer Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and Their Wives. From these two sources, I put this together.

Robert Hall Morrison was born in 1798 in Concord, North Carolina. He was educated at the University of North Carolina (only one at the time - Chapel Hill) and then at Princeton Seminary (was it Princeton yet?) He ministered in the churches in the Charlotte-Fayetteville area. Morrison married Mary Graham, daughter of Gen. Joseph Graham of Revolutionary War fame and sister of William A. Graham, governor, US senator, and Secretary of the Navy under Millard Fillmore.

Anna was born July 21, 1831, the third of six daughters. Robert Morrison started to work towards the establishment of Presbyterian college in North Carolina, and in 1837, Davidson College opened its doors. Morrison was the schools first president. Anna attended Salem Academy in what is now Winston-Salem for a time. She was visiting with her sister, Isabella, in Lexington, Virginia, (who married D. H. Hill), when she met Jackson for the first time. They were married in 1857 at Cottage Hill, the plantation of Robert Morrison, sixteen miles from Davidson.

Davidson, in northern Mecklenburg County, is one of my favorite places to visit. If you ever stop by, try and visit the cemetery. It’s where Daniel Harvey Hill is buried (in the back, right hand corner).

Finally Finished

I finally finished that Avery County history that I’ve been working on for the past couple of months. I’ve written 28,000 words since January 1.

Why do I write county histories? There is a need. A few years ago, I sat down (I was working at Caldwell Community College at the time), and went through scores of counties in the Southern states. Many counties had never had a formal, organized history. (Those black heritage volumes do not count! While there can be good information in these, they are haphazard in coverage, and often contain little more than long lines of genealogy.) And for the counties that did have histories, most of them were at least 40 years old. Watauga County was one of those. Their first history was written in 1915. There was a small volume done in 1949, but nothing else. Avery County’s last history was done in 1964. Caldwell County’s were in 1930 and 1956. Yancey County has never had a history. If I remember correctly, neither has Alleghany County or Mitchell County. And those are just a few of North Carolina’s 100 counties.

My first venture into writing county histories was the tome on Watauga County. It was, more or less, a chronological history, with two chapters about the Civil War. Next came two pictorial histories, one on Avery and the second on Caldwell. The latter was released in November and is currently sold out and re-printing. This last project was a collection of essays on different local history. The time span for the essays runs from the 1770s (Overmountain Men) to the 1980s (Blue Ridge Parkway - Viaduct). There are two just essays about the War: one on Col. John B. Palmer (58th NCT) and the other on the Blalocks (26th NCT). The last option is to do a history topically, i.e., chapters on education, religion, military, etc. I have a county in Alabama I am thinking about writing a history for and this would be the layout if I ever get to write it.

Why all this talk about county histories? The War Between the States had an effect on each of these places. Boys marched away, often to never return. And in many cases, the war was brought home by deserters, bushwackers, or whole armies. A few counties in North Carolina even have War-time histories (Yadkin, Carteret, and Davidson come to mind). Three cheers for those historians that have undertaken these ventures. The War happened almost 150 years ago and the opportunity to write about those dreadful events is quickly passing. The folks who remembered those events are gone and the folks who remember hearing those stories are quickly passing on. With today’s generations of people who just don’t read (and are largely indifferent), well, that history will soon be gone.

My advice? Get out and collect at least the history of your community, and get copies of it into your local library. Maybe someday somebody like me will come along and need to use it.

And, don’t forget to document where you get that information!

A few thoughts on Mrs. “Stonewall” Jackson

A couple of days ago, the 183rd birthday of Stonewall Jackson came and went. Some folks are aware that the General’s second wife, Mary Anna Morrison, was born in North Carolina in 1831. She met Jackson in Virginia, not long before the war began, and they were married. Once the war began, she returned to Charlotte and continued to make the Queen city her home after his death.

After the war, Mrs. Stonewall Jackson was a very prominent member of the community that sought to commemorate the war. In 1898, Mrs. Jackson organized and became the first president of Stonewall Jackson Chapter #220 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Charlotte. She was elected president for life. As her health permitted, she was always at Confederate Veteran reunions, and the old soldiers always enjoyed seeing her, the wife of their beloved commander.

Mrs. Jackson died in 1915 and is buried beside her husband in Lexington, Virginia. In 1938, the U. D. C. marked the birthplace of Mrs. Stonewall Jackson on Derita Road in Charlotte with a large memorial arch and a bronze plaque. I have an old photograph of the arch, but have been unable to find out if it still exists. I do not wander the streets of Charlotte very often.

What got me thinking on this? I’ve been reading the book Miracle In The Hills, about the Sloops and Crossnore School here in Avery County. Mrs. Sloop was Miss Mary T. Martin, daughter of Col. William J. Martin, 11th North Carolina (Bethel Regiment). He was also a college professor. His daughter, the famous Mrs. Dr. Sloop, was born in Davidson. She wrote in her autobiography: “I was born in Davidson, just across the street from the president’s house... The old house, in which the present president of Davidson College, Dr. John R. Cunningham, and his family live, is the house in which Mrs. Stonewall Jackson was born when her father, Dr. Morrison, was president of Davidson. As you go into the front door, the room in which she was born is on the left side of the hallway. Don’t forget to look.”

Maybe it’s time to head to Mecklenburg County and look for that memorial.

Happy 200th Birthday, Robert E. Lee

This is an article that I wrote on R. E. Lee last week that appeared in a couple of local newspapers.

At the mention of "great Americans," a relatively small list of people comes to mind; George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Franklin D. Roosevelt are just a few.

January 19 marks the 200th birthday of another individual whom many of us consider a great American. Robert Edward Lee was born in Virginia on January 19, 1807. While born into an old Virginia family, he was not born into wealth. His mother was charged with raising the family after his father, "Light Horse Harry" Lee, died in 1818.

Robert’s older brother Smith had joined the Navy. Robert sought and obtained a appointment to the United States Army Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1829, second in his class, with no marks against his record. The summer after he graduated, his mother died.
Lee went on to serve in the prestigious Engineer Corps, designing and building coastal fortifications. Lee was in North Carolina, touring Forts Macon and Caswell, in 1840. Lee married Mary Ann Custis in 1831, and they went on to have seven children. All of his sons would become soldiers.

At the death of his father-in-law, Lee’s wife Mary inherited the family home at Arlington outside Washington, D. C. They also inherited the slaves from the plantation. Lee spent the next five years working toward fulfilling the requests of his father-in-law’s will, including the emancipation of the inherited slaves.

In 1860, Lee found himself in Texas, serving with the Second United States Cavalry. His country was falling apart around him. Lee did not believe in secession, and he believed that the election of a man as president from a radical party did not warrant revolution. "But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union." Lee wrote in January 1861. To another friend he wrote "God alone can save us from our folly, selfishness and short sightedness... we have barely escaped anarchy to be plunged into civil war." Yet, he would not take up arms against his home state.

Lee resigned from the army in April 1861 and was immediately commissioned a brigadier general in the state of Virginia. His commission in the newly formed Confederate army soon followed.

For four years, Lee led one of the greatest armies in history. His victories over armies at times twice as large as his own are studied and taught throughout the world. When mentioning great generals of history, like Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and McArthur, Lee’s name is always included.

Many local men from the Toe River Valley served under Lee in his Army of Northern Virginia. Some of those men survived the war; others were killed on the fields of Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and the Wilderness. Others died of disease in hospitals and prison camps.

The Confederate States of America failed to gain its independence, and in April 1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Lee declined several lucrative job offers after the war, only to become an educator at Washington College. He again visited North Carolina, in March 1870, spending time at the grave of his daughter Agnes, near Warrenton. Lee died in October 1870, in Lexington, Virginia, and is buried in the chapel of what is now known as Washington and Lee University.

Robert E. Lee deserves to be remembered. His character, his Christian faith, his military tactics--- his entire life is an example that should be emulated. In a day and age when we need heroes, when we need people to look up to, Lee should be one of those men who command our attention.