Southern History

Charge of the 11th Mississippi, 3rd July, 1863

THE UNIVERSITY GREYS AND THE 11TH MISSISSIPPI GO "ALL THE WAY" IN PICKETT'S CHARGE - July 3, 1863 "This day is called Pickett's Charge anniversary, He that outlives this day, and comes home safe, Will stand on tiptoe, when this day is named, And rouse him at the name Gettysburg. He that shall live this day and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors, And say, "Tomorrow is Pickett's Charge", Then will he strip his sleeves and show the scars, And say, "These wounds I had in Pickett's Charge", Old men forget, yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember, with advantages, What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words, Lieutenant Moore, Gage, Myers, Bridges, Dailey, Lea, McKie, Brewer, Baker, Goodwin, and 21 others, Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered, The story shall the good man teach his son, and grandson. And Pickett's Charge day shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered - We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, For he today that sheds his blood with me, Shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition, And gentlemen in England, now abed, Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhood's cheap, while any man speaks That fought with us in Pickett's Charge. My thanks and apologies to Willy Shake! by the Southern Gentleman, Starke Miller

Private William S Langley was 25 years old, a single farmer and from Jones County, Mississippi but moved with his family to Harrison County, Texas. He along with younger brother Thomas joined Co. E, 1st Texas infantry regiment in May 1861. He was killed in action while fighting around Devil's Den, killed instantly by a Minnie ball hitting him in the forehead. His brother survived the war and returned to farm in Texas and raise a family. Find a grave. from Joe Mayr

Sergeant Roland Hudson was 32 years old and originally from Beaufort, SC but moved to Butler, Georgia. He joined Co. C, 59th Georgia infantry regiment in May 1862. He married Mary Neal in 1850 and had three children, one son and two daughters. He was killed in action on July 2nd while charging Union soldiers from Maine and Delaware in the Wheatfield. This regiment made three charges with a 25% casualty rate. Had come through the Rose woods. Sources include find a grave. from Joe Mayr

Sergeant George C Hayden was 21 years old and from Chaptico, Maryland. He joined Co. B, 1st Maryland Battalion CSA. He was mortally wounded the morning of July 3rd while assaulting Culp's Hill. His mother and brother in law, who was a physician arrived via horse and buggy soon afterwards from Maryland while he was a prisoner at the Camp Letterman hospital. Unfortunately he did not improve with their care and passed nearly two months later. Sources include find a grave and Life on Civil War Research Travel. from Joe Mayr

Private James B Loughbridge was 22 years old and from Surry County, Virginia. Was possibly married. He joined Parker's Regiment, Virginia Light Artillery Battery in Richmond in 1862, part of Longstreet's Corps. He was promoted to Corporal but somehow got into trouble, court martialed and demoted to Private. He was killed in action on July 3rd at the beginning of Pickett's Charge from return fire of Union artillery. His unit had 20% casualty rate at Gettysburg. Sources include find a grave and National Park Service. from Joe Mayr

Private Joshua S Howell was 27 years old originally from Wilkes, Georgia but moved to Tallapoosa, Alabama. He joined Co. B, 47th Alabama infantry regiment in May 1862. He was married to Evaline Tucker and had four children, three sons and one daughter all under the age of eight. He was killed in action on July 2nd while assaulting Little Roundtop to the left of the 15th Alabama. His regiment was fighting men from the 20th Maine and 83rd Pennsylvania infantry regiments. Sources include Alabama Confederate Images and Family Search. from Joe Mayr

1st Lt Benjamin A Campbell was originally from Alabama but moved with his family to Anderson County, Texas in the early 1850s. He got married at 18 and his wife gave birth to their son in 1861. He was 19 years old when he joined Co. G, 1st Texas infantry regiment in 1861. He fought in many battles with the Army of Northern Virginia. He was killed in action while leading his men near Devil's Den July 2nd, shot through the heart. Sources include find a grave and Texas Confederate Images. from Joe Mayr

Private J Wesley Culp was 24 years old and born and raised in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He was an apprentice carriage maker and in 1856 when his company moved to Sheperdstown, Virginia he relocated there. His brother William worked with him and when the war started he moved back and joined the 87th Pennsylvania infantry regiment. Wesley stayed in Virginia and had joined a local Virginia militia but then joined Co. I of the 2nd Virginia infantry regiment, part of the Stonewall Brigade. He was good friends with Jennie Wade, the only civilian killed during the battle and her fiancée Johnston Skelly who was in the 87th Pennsylvania regimen. Wesley was killed in action July 2nd while assaulting Culp's Hill, which was owned by his relative Henry Culp. His body was never recovered. It is said that his brother disowned him for the rest of his life for joining the Confederacy .Sources include find a grave and American Civil War Battlefield Trust. from Joe Mayr

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago; or to anyone who ever sailed a skiff under a quilt sail, the moment in 1492 when somebody thought This is it: the absolute edge of no return, to turn back now and make home or sail irrevocably on and either find land or plunge over the world’s roaring rim.” -- William Faulkner

When the first color-bearer of the 21st North Carolina was killed while charging up "that" hill at Gettysburg, July 2, the flag was picked up by Major Alexander Miller. When Miller went down, Private J.W. Bennett picked it up, and was also shot. Four more men of the 21st North Carolina were killed carrying the flag, then Captain James Beall picked it up. This is how Captain Beall describes the carnage: "The hour was one of horror...Amid the roar of cannon, the din of musketry, and the glare of bursting shells making the darkness intermittent - adding awfulness to the scene - the hoarse shouts of friend and foe, the piteous cries of wounded and dying, one could well imagine, (if it were proper to say it), that war is hell. To remain was certain capture, to retreat was almost certain death. Few, except the wounded and dead were left behind. Here, these brave North Carolinians stood, few and faint, but fearless still." Photo: Major (Captain) James F. Beall - 21st North Carolina

In 1710, a Swiss nobleman named Christoph von Graffenried led a group of Swiss and German Palatine settlers up the Trent and Neuse rivers to found a colony they named after Bern, Switzerland. They arrived exhausted, having survived a difficult Atlantic crossing and, for some, an attack by pirates along the way. The settlement they built, New Bern, sat on land the Tuscarora had lived on for generations, and tensions over that encroachment would erupt into war within a year. The Tuscarora War nearly wiped the young colony out entirely before it truly got started. New Bern survived, and would later become North Carolina's colonial capital, home to Tryon Palace and a strange, layered history that started with a Swiss nobleman's dream of a new Bern on the other side of the world. ⛵️ Do you know of a town near you that was founded by settlers from somewhere completely unexpected? from New Bern Backstory

"Barksdale had been exceedingly impatient for the order to advance, and his enthusiasm was shared in by his command. Barksdale was standing in front ready to give the word and to lead. He was not far from me; and so soon as it was signified to me I sent my aid-de-camp, Captain G.B. Lamar, Jr., to carry the order to General Barksdale, and the results I express in Captain Lamar’s words: ‘I had witnessed many charges marked in every way by unflinching gallantry; indeed, I had the honor of participating when in the line with the First Georgia Regulars, but I never saw anything to equal the dash and heroism of the Mississippians. You remember how anxious General Barksdale was to attack the enemy, and his eagerness was participated in by all of his officers and men, and when I carried him the order to advance his face was radiant with joy. He was in front of his brigade, hat off, and his long, white hair reminded me of the white plume of Navarre. I saw him as far as the eye could follow, still ahead of his men, leading them on. The result you know. You remember the picket fence in front of the brigade? I was anxious to see how they would get over and around it. When they reached it, the fence disappeared as if by magic, and the slaughter on the other side was terrible. Barksdale, gallantly leading his men in the terriffic fight, fell mortally wounded. The last words of that ardent patriot to fall on the ears of one of his countrymen were, “I am killed. Tell my wife and children I died fighting at my post.” He then ordered a courier to move an artillery unit forward, with Union troops closing in on him at no less than 50 yards range." After he was mortally wounded, Barksdale was taken to the Hummelbaugh House, and while on the surgeon's table, he told the blue-clad doctors and officers, "Hancock had better watch his back, Old Peter has a surprise for you in the morning!" He died alone during the night and, after dawn, doctors saw that souvenir hunters had taken some of his gold braid and clipped the Mississippi star buttons from his jacket. Likewise the studs with Masonic emblems had been removed from his linen shirt. Doctors took the last remaining button from his coat and a strap from his sword belt, both of which were later offered to Mrs. Barksdale. He was buried by his captors in a temporary grave in the yard of the house. His wife, Narcissa Barksdale came to Gettysburg after the war with her husband’s favorite hunting dog to find and retrieve his corpse for re-burial. His dog refused to leave his master’s Pennsylvania grave even after his remains were removed. The story goes that the dog eventually had to be left behind when Mrs. Barksdale returned to Mississippi. He is buried in Greenville Cemetery, Jackson. Colonel H.W. Walter headed the Masonic contingent that took part in the funeral ceremony, and his words make a good epitaph for General Barksdale: "When the hour of peril came to the South, he sought the post of danger, and the halo of heroism illumined the chaplet of the statesman. At the head of his noble Mississippians, he led the van on the ensanguined field, and wherever blows fell fastest and blood flowed freest, his manly form was seen and his clarion voice was heard. In the frightful carnival of death at Gettysburg, he yielded to that conqueror whose command is law, and his gallant spirit went home." – Public Ledger (Memphis, Tennessee), January 16, 1867 from the Virginia Flaggers

“I am sure that it was the grandest charge that was ever seen by mortal man.” Those are the words of Union Colonel Worthen, whose men at Gettysburg tried to stand against the Mississippi brigade commanded by General William Barksdale. Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, and there are many tales of the brave men that fought there. This is a tale of the “grandest charge.” Longstreet needed to create an opening in the Union lines, but attacks by four of his brigades had failed in the face of a Union artillery battery. Brigadier General Barksdale approached Longstreet with a request: “I wish you would let me go in, General; I would take that battery in five minutes!” Longstreet’s answer: “you’ll be in it soon enough”. Barksdale was itching to get his Mississippians into the fight. Again he requested … and again, when finally Longstreet gave the order. Barksdale rode to the front of the brigade and shouted, “Attention, Mississippians! Battalions, forward!” With that “Fourteen hundred rifles were grasped with firm hands, and as the line officers repeated the command ‘Forward, March’ the men sprang forward and fourteen hundred voices raised the ‘Rebel yell’….” “General Barksdale gave the word, and waving his hat, led the line forward himself and we all followed him,” proudly wrote one Mississippian. “Dress to the colors and forward to the foe!” were the orders. “When a solid shot tore a gap in your ranks it was instantly closed up, and the Brigade came on in almost perfect line.” Mounted atop an auburn charger, Barksdale, his shoulder length white hair blowing in the wind drove his attack home. True to his word, Barksdale’s men swiftly overwhelmed the artillery. But the Mississippi Brigade was not done. They raced onward to where the 68th Pennsylvania awaited them. The 68th collapsed in 30 minutes. Onward went the charge of the Mississippi Brigade, shattering the 57th Pennsylvania next. But this was the “grandest charge,” and not quite over. Racing into the 141st Pennsylvania, the clash was ferocious, with 70 percent of the Federals lost before they retreated. The Mississippi boys had driven a hole a mile deep into the Union lines. One of the Confederate soldiers reported that a Federal soldier from Pennsylvania insisted on shaking hands “with one of the men who made the most splendid charge of the war.” In 1878, Gen. Lafayette McLaws said of Barksdale’s Charge and his the gallant brigade of Mississippians that he led at the Battle of Gettysburg. He said of them:

On December 12, 1864, Union forces launched a surprise nighttime raid against Fort Branch, briefly capturing its commander, Colonel John Hinton. Despite the initial success, Confederate troops quickly regrouped, forcing the Union raiders to withdraw and leaving the fort in Confederate hands until the final months of the war. from LIDAR America and Hidden Archeology

Fort Branch — Hamilton, North Carolina 📍 35°55'45.16"N, 77°10'10.77"W Constructed in 1862 along the high bluffs of Rainbow Banks overlooking the Roanoke River, Fort Branch was one of the Confederacy's most important inland river defenses in eastern North Carolina. Its commanding position allowed Confederate artillery to control navigation on the Roanoke River and protect the vital Wilmington & Weldon Railroad, one of the South's most important supply lines. Armed with twelve heavy guns, the fort served as a major obstacle to Union advances into the Roanoke Valley. LiDAR clearly reveals the remarkably preserved zigzag earthworks, traverses, and artillery positions that once sheltered Confederate soldiers from enemy fire. Although much of the site is hidden beneath forest canopy today, the fort's defensive layout remains strikingly visible from the air, offering a rare glimpse into Civil War military engineering more than 160 years after its construction.