In April 1862, the Civil War was entering its second year and North Carolina was rallying to supply more troops for the Confederacy. The Partisan Ranger Act, passed by the Confederate Congress on April 21, prompted local leaders to recruit companies of irregular soldiers for service in the Confederate Army. Seven such companies were banded together into a regiment to form the 4th North Carolina Cavalry: a true cross-section of North Carolina, it contained soldiers from the largest urban areas and smallest rural areas from fifteen counties. This history of the 4th North Carolina Cavalry is based largely on primary source material--the official records, letters, diaries and recollections of the soldiers. The 4th North Carolina saw action in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and was a part of General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The roster comprises a large part of the book and provides biographical, genealogical and military information about each soldier.
In April 1862, the Civil War was entering its second year and North Carolina was rallying to supply more troops for the Confederacy. The Partisan Ranger Act, passed by the Confederate Congress on April 21, prompted local leaders to recruit companies of irregular soldiers for service in the Confederate Army. Seven such companies were banded together into a regiment to form the 4th North Carolina Cavalry: a true cross-section of North Carolina, it contained soldiers from the largest urban areas and smallest rural areas from fifteen counties. This history of the 4th North Carolina Cavalry is based largely on primary source material--the official records, letters, diaries and recollections of the soldiers. The 4th North Carolina saw action in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and was a part of General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The roster comprises a large part of the book and provides biographical, genealogical and military information about each soldier.
In April 1862, the Civil War was entering its second year and North Carolina was rallying to supply more troops for the Confederacy. The Partisan Ranger Act, passed by the Confederate Congress on April 21, prompted local leaders to recruit companies of irregular soldiers for service in the Confederate Army. Seven such companies were banded together into a regiment to form the 4th North Carolina Cavalry: a true cross-section of North Carolina, it contained soldiers from the largest urban areas and smallest rural areas from fifteen counties. This history of the 4th North Carolina Cavalry is based largely on primary source material--the official records, letters, diaries and recollections of the soldiers. The 4th North Carolina saw action in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and was a part of General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The roster comprises a large part of the book and provides biographical, genealogical and military information about each soldier.
The Second North Carolina Cavalry fought its first major battle in its home state at New Bern on March 14, 1862, and narrowly escaped with its men and reputation intact. The regiment was nearly decimated in the Gettysburg Campaign, but was rebuilt and later fought with Robert E. Lee's cavalry in most major battles, including Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, with only a handful of men This history covers not only the Second North Carolina Cavalry's accomplishments and failures, but the events going on around them which influenced their actions and performance. The author pays particular attention to the Second North Carolina's involvement with the Army of Northern Virginia and the North Carolina Cavalry Brigade, and includes official documents, letters written to and from home, diaries and memoirs to present the soldiers' war experiences.
A remarkable biography of a Confederate brigadier general’s experiences during—and after—the Civil War: “Well-written and deeply researched” (Eric J. Wittenberg, author of Out Flew the Sabers). Rufus Barringer fought on horseback through most of the Civil War with General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and rose to lead the North Carolina Cavalry Brigade in some of the war’s most difficult combats. This book details his entire history for the first time. Barringer raised a company early in the war and fought with the 1st North Carolina Cavalry from the Virginia peninsula through Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. He was severely wounded at Brandy Station, and as a result missed the remainder of the Gettysburg Campaign, returning to his regiment in mid-October, 1863. Within three months he was a lieutenant colonel, and by June 1864 a brigadier general in command of the North Carolina Brigade, which fought the rest of the war with Lee and was nearly destroyed during the retreat from Richmond in 1865. The captured Barringer met President Lincoln at City Point; endured prison; and after the war did everything he could to convince North Carolinians to accept Reconstruction and heal the wounds of war. Drawing upon a wide array of newspapers, diaries, letters, and previously unpublished family documents and photographs, as well as other firsthand accounts, this is an in-depth, colorful, and balanced portrait of an overlooked Southern cavalry commander. It is easy today to paint all who wore Confederate gray with a broad brush because they fought on the side to preserve slavery—but this biography reveals a man who wielded the sword and then promptly sheathed it to follow a bolder vision, proving to be a champion of newly freed slaves—a Southern gentleman decades ahead of his time.
The night after the commander of the 4th South Carolina Regiment sent his men home, he burned the wagon with the regiment's records rather than have it fall into enemy hands. Lloyd Halliburton has reconstructed the story from General Stokes' personal correspondence and memorabilia.
Provides a brief history and "certain information such as organization, campaigns, losses, commanders, etc." for each unit listed in "Marcus J. Wright's List of Field Officers, Regiments, and Battalions in the Confederate States Army, 1861-1865."--Intro., p.xi.
Of all the states in the Confederacy, Tennessee was the most sectionally divided. East Tennesseans opposed secession at the ballot box in 1861, petitioned unsuccessfully for separate statehood, resisted the Confederate government, enlisted in Union militias, elected U.S. congressmen, and fled as refugees into Kentucky. These refugees formed Tennessee's first Union cavalry regiments during early 1862, followed shortly thereafter by others organized in Union-occupied Middle and West Tennessee. In Homegrown Yankees, the first book-length study of Union cavalry from a Confederate state, James Alex Baggett tells the remarkable story of Tennessee's loyal mounted regiments. Fourteen mounted regiments that fought primarily within the boundaries of the state and eight local units made up Tennessee's Union cavalry. Young, nonslaveholding farmers who opposed secession, the Confederacy, and the war -- from isolated villages east of Knoxville, the Cumberland Mountains, or the Tennessee River counties in the west -- filled the ranks. Most Tennesseans denounced these local bluecoats as renegades, turncoats, and Tories; accused them of betraying their people, their section, and their race; and held them in greater contempt than soldiers from the North. Though these homegrown Yankees participated in many battles -- including those in the Stones River, Tullahoma, Chickamauga, East Tennessee, Nashville, and Atlanta campaigns -- their story provides rare insights into what occurred between the battles. For them, military action primarily meant almost endless skirmishing with partisans, guerrillas, and bushwackers, as well as with the Rebel raiders of John Hunt Morgan, Joseph Wheeler, and Nathan Bedford Forrest, who frequently recruited and supplied themselves from behind enemy lines. Tennessee's Union cavalry scouted and foraged the countryside, guarded outposts and railroads, acted as couriers, supported the flanks of infantry, and raided the enemy. On occasion, especially during the Nashville campaign, they provided rapid pursuit of Confederate forces. They also helped protect fellow unionists from an aggressive pro-Confederate insurgency after 1862. Baggett vividly describes the deprivation, sickness, and loneliness of cavalrymen living on the war's periphery and traces how circumstances beyond their control -- such as terrain, transport, equipage, weaponry, public sentiment, and military policy -- affected their lives. He also explores their well-earned reputation for plundering -- misdeeds motivated by revenge, resentment, a lack of discipline, and the hard-war policy of the Union army. In the never-before-told story of these cavalrymen, Homegrown Yankees offers new insights into an unexplored facet of southern Unionism and provides an exciting new perspective on the Civil War in Tennessee.
