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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Eastern North Carolina
The Struggle for Victory
In Victory and In Defeat
Prison Life
The Army of Northern Virginia came close to victory in the epic Battle of Gettysburg, in July 1863, and most white Southerners believed the failure there was only a temporary setback in the struggle for independence. Spirits rebounded quickly with the Confederate success at Chickamauga, Georgia, but 1863 ended with enormous North Carolina losses in poorly fought battles in Virginia.
Farthest to the Front at Gettysburg and at Chickamauga
Now colonel, for the honor of the Good Old North State, forward!
—Brigadier General James Johnston Pettigrew at the Battle of Gettysburg,
July 3, 1863
Left for dead on a battlefield in 1862, James Johnston Pettigrew survived his wounds and prison to return to the army. In July 1863, General Pettigrew led his men in the Battle of Gettysburg, where the casualties among Tar Heel troops made up 25 percent of the total losses in the Army of Northern Virginia. In the fall of 1863, North Carolina soldiers helped win victory at Chickamauga but suffered terrible casualties in disastrous engagements at Bristoe Station and Mine Run in Virginia. Through it all, North Carolinians gained fame as some of the hardest-fighting soldiers in the Confederacy-in victory and in defeat.
James Johnston Pettigrew
General James Johnston Pettigrew, from Tyrrell County, led his brigade in the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, and led a division on July 3, when he received a wound to the right hand. On July 14, in the retreat to Virginia, he was wounded in the abdomen during a brief fight with Union cavalry. Pettigrew refused to stay behind to be captured by the enemy, so he was moved into Virginia. Three days later he died, at the age of thirty-five.
Peter
In October 1861, Charles L. Pettigrew sent Peter to the Confederate army to serve Brigadier General James Johnston Pettigrew, Charles's brother. Charles wrote: "Peter is well acquainted with horses, is a capable servant in many respects; he can make clothes and is a first rate nurse." Peter had the responsibility for managing General Pettigrew's personal belongings and welfare. In June 1862, when Pettigrew was reported as killed in battle, a fellow officer wrote to the family: "Peter shall be as well cared for as if the General were alive. His grief at the loss of the General is most touching and draws out the sympathies of all of us." But Pettigrew survived. When the general returned to the army, Peter helped him recover from three wounds. In July 1863, Peter accompanied General Pettigrew at the Battle of Gettysburg. After the battle, Peter cared for Pettigrew, who had sustained injury again. Days later, Peter saw his master mortally wounded in another fight and helped carry him from the field. He remained by Pettigrew's side for three days, until the general died. Peter then returned to North Carolina with the body of his master.
Henry K. Burgwyn
Henry K. Burgwyn, a twenty-one-year-old from Northampton County, was called "the boy colonel" by his men. On July 1, 1863, at Gettysburg, Colonel Burgywn commanded the Twenty-sixth Regiment North Carolina Troops. He was shot through the chest and mortally wounded while carrying the regimental flag in an attack. He died within two hours. Burgwyn was one of fourteen men shot down carrying the flag in the charge. His regiment lost 588 of 800 men (more than 73 percent) in the attack.
John Thomas Jones
John Thomas Jones transferred to the Twenty-sixth Regiment North Carolina Troops in July 1861 and became a major in 1862. In May 1863, the regiment left North Carolina to join the Army of Northern Virginia. During the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1, the regiment was nearly destroyed. Jones was wounded but refused to leave his men. As the regiment's only remaining officer, he was placed in command. On July 3, Jones led the regiment in the last unsuccessful charge, when he suffered a second wound. His younger brother Walter Jones was mortally wounded at Gettysburg and left behind when the army retreated, to await capture and death. Shaken but not demoralized, John Thomas Jones recovered from his wounds and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. As 1863 ended, he felt confident that General Robert E. Lee's army would ultimately win the war.
George P. Bryan
Wake County native George P. Bryan volunteered in 1861. During the Gettysburg campaign on June 21, 1863, Bryan was shot in the head and trampled in a cavalry charge near Upperville, Virginia. He survived but was captured and imprisoned for nine months. Bryan was exchanged and returned to his regiment but then suffered a mortal wound while leading a cavalry charge outside Richmond in August 1864.
E. C. N. Green
Before he volunteered in 1862 at the age of twenty-one, E. C. N. Green was a farmer in Wake County. A sergeant, he fought in several battles in the summer of 1862 and spring of 1863. At Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, Green was killed as his regiment attacked Union troops.
Basil C. Manly
Captain Basil C. Manly from Wake County commanded an artillery battery of four cannons. At the Battle of Gettysburg, Manly's battery was heavily engaged in the fighting on July 2 and 3, 1863.
Newton A. Branch
Newton A. Branch, a Burke County native, volunteered at the age of twenty-three in May 1861. On July 1, 1863, he was wounded in the foot during an attack at Gettysburg. Unable to walk, Branch stayed behind when the Confederate army retreated and was captured. He was later exchanged but could not return to active service because of the disabling wound.
Henry Clay Albright
Henry Clay Albright, an eighteen-year-old native of Chatham County, enlisted in 1861 and was promoted to captain in the fall of 1862. Albright fought at Gettysburg and was mortally wounded near Petersburg in September 1864. He died a month later in a Richmond hospital.
David Coleman
Colonel David Coleman, a Buncombe County native, enlisted in 1861 at the age of thirty-seven and fought in the Confederate army in the west during the war. At the Battle of Chickamauga on September 19-20, 1863, he led a brigade including the Thirty-ninth Regiment North Carolina Troops in an attack on two Union artillery batteries. Colonel Coleman was the first man to reach the guns. After his men fought in hand-to-hand combat with the Federals, they captured ten artillery pieces. The crossed cannons on the regimental flag celebrate that victory and others won by the regiment. Coleman served until paroled in Shreveport, Louisiana, at the end of the war.
Thomas Ruffin
Colonel Thomas Ruffin, from Wayne County, volunteered at the age of forty in May 1861. Colonel Ruffin was shot through the head in an attack on Union infantry at Auburn Mills, Virginia, on October 15, 1863. His men thought he was dead and left him on the field. The enemy found Ruffin alive and took him to a prison hospital, where he died on October 18.
Alexander F. Spencer
Alexander F. Spencer, a stonemason from Granville County, volunteered as a private in April 1861 at the age of thirty-two. During the war, he received several promotions, eventually to captain in October 1863. Spencer was so badly wounded in the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia, on October 19, 1864, that he had to leave the service.
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