Carried Into War
A Soldier's Life
Realities of War
The Home Front
Facing the Grim Reaper
Breaking the Blockade
The Last Campaigns
An Uncertain Future
Acknowledgments
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Camp Life
Campaigning
During campaigns, huge numbers of men and large quantities of equipment shifted and maneuvered across the landscape. Most North Carolina soldiers probably carried a haversack, an oilskin cloth, a blanket, a rifle, a bayonet, cartridges, percussion caps, a cartridge box, a drinking cup, and a canteen. Troops often marched twelve to fifteen miles a day. Seasoned soldiers soon learned to carry only essential items.
Alfred May
I have no news of importance to tell you. We have been on a tramp to Suffolk. We stayed there five nights and returned to our same place, Proctor's Ferry.
—Sergeant Alfred May, Company F (Trio Guards), Sixty-first Regiment North Carolina Troops, March 4, 1864
Alfred May left his Pitt County home in the summer of 1862 and traveled to Wilmington, where on August 25 he enlisted in Company F (Trio Guards), Sixty-first Regiment North Carolina Troops. He served in the same unit as his older brothers Robert and Benjamin May. The regiment fought in eastern North Carolina in 1862, and in 1863 it saw combat at Battery Wagner near Charleston. The following year, the Sixty-first North Carolina fought in several battles around Richmond. Benjamin suffered a wound to the head at Petersburg in July 1864, and Robert died in a Richmond hospital of unrecorded causes in October. The regiment participated in the last major battle of the war at Bentonville in March 1865. At some point in the war's final days or after the Confederate surrender, Alfred returned home and carefully put away his uniform, rifle, cartridge box, pistol, and many other items, including objects that he apparently carried home as battlefield souvenirs. The grouping of artifacts displayed here is unique. It is the largest extant collection of objects associated with a North Carolina Confederate enlisted soldier.
Second Lieutenant Edward Wooten
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Pitt County native Edward Wooten listed his occupation as student when he enlisted in Company B, Sixty-third Regiment North Carolina Troops (Fifth Regiment North Carolina Cavalry) on May 13, 1862. Promoted to second lieutenant, Wooten served until the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. In 1875 his sister Ida Eugenia Wooten married Alfred May, and in 1891 she painted both her brother's and her husband's wartime Federal canteens with Confederate flags as a gift. The wooden Confederate canteen marked "Wooten," which was recovered from the May homeplace, might have belonged to either Edward or one of his brothers.
Transcript of letter from Edward Wooten to his sister Ida Wooten
May, 1891.
Bolivar Tenn
18th Sept
Dear Ida,
The dear old "Canteen" with the beautiful and appropriate ornamentation came par express today. It awakens old & sad associations of the dark days of war. The hardships & the many thirsts that its contents have quenched. Yonge thinks the work beautiful & we shall prize & treasure it. Many thanks to you for your thoughtfulness & taste &c- I had lost sight of the dear old friend & should probably never thought of it again. My sabre I gave to the Iredell Blues at Statesville N.C. some years ago. They had my name & rank &c carved on it & it hangs in their Armory as a Memento of the late "lost cause" & the poor services that I rendered in that sacred cause. The dear old canteen with its beautiful adornings hangs in the Parlor here & is admired by all who see it. My children will prize it after I am gone to rest where the unnumbered & unknown dead have gone before. Many mouths have sipped from the contents of this dear old canteen, whose lips are now still & whose parched & dry mouths will never again crave the cool & refreshing draughts that it so often contained dipped from a thousand springs & wells from which we quenched our thirst. This letter if preserved by you may at some distant day be read by a generation yet unborn & so the story now told of 1863 be new to those who may live in 1963 it may be. At any rate I thank you for yr handiwork that so beautifully adorns the dear old canteen of well nigh a generation ago. God bless you dear Ida for the old reminiscence of 28 years ago.
Affcty yr brother
Edward Wooten
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