TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
Jno. W. Hinsdale.
HISTORY
OF THE
SEVENTY-SECOND REGIMENT
OF THE
NORTH CAROLINA TROOPS,
IN THE
WAR BETWEEN THE STATES, 1861-’65,
BY
Col. John W. Hinsdale
of Raleigh, N. C.
NASH BROTHERS,
BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS,
GOLDSBORO, N. C.
SEVENTY-SECOND REGIMENT.
(THIRD JUNIOR RESERVES.)
It affords the writer pleasure to respond to the invitationof Judge Walter Clark, himself a distinguished officer of theboy-soldiers, to make a lasting memorial of the courage andheroism of the brave and patriotic lads who composed theThird Regiment of Junior Reserves, known since the war asthe Seventy-second Regiment of North Carolina Troops. Itis to be regretted that the task has not been performed at anearlier day, before the stirring scenes in which these youthstook so conspicuous a part have faded into the dim outline ofa shadowy dream. Some inaccuracies must now necessarilycreep into this sketch. The writer was AssistantAdjutant-General of Lieutenant-General Theophilus H.Holmes, who commanded the Reserves of North Carolina,and he has in his possession many valuable records pertainingto that office, access to which has been of great assistance inthe preparation of this regimental history.
It is deemed not inappropriate here to narrate some thingsof a general nature concerning the Reserves.
The year 1863 closed with depression and gloom throughoutour young Confederacy. Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana,Tennessee and the Arkansas and Mississippi Valleys hadbeen lost. Vicksburg, with its ill-fated commander, had surrendered.Gettysburg, in spite of the heroic efforts of Carolina’sbest and bravest, had been turned by Longstreet’s defaultinto a Union victory. All of our ports had been blockaded.Sherman with his army of bummers, was preparingfor his infamous march through Georgia and the Carolinas, inwhich he emulated the atrocities of the Duke of Alva, proclaimingas his excuse that “War is hell,” and violating, withfire and sword, every principle of civilized warfare. Granthad been placed in command of all the Union armies and waspreparing to take personal charge of a campaign of attritionagainst the Army of Northern Virginia, willing to swap five[4]for one in battle, if need be, in order to exhaust his straitenedadversary—a process by which with his unlimited resourcesof men, he knew he was bound to win in the end.
It was in such dire distress that the Confederate Congress17 February, 1864, aroused to a full sense of the magnitudeof the struggle, and recognizing the necessity for putt