406 NortH CaroLina Troops, 1861-65.

to Virginia, his native State. At the beginning of the war
he was made Major in the Confederate regular army, and
for a short while was assistant Provost Marshal of Richmond,
and afterwards was sent as commandant of the prison at
Salisbury, where he organized the Fifty-seventh Regiment.
He was in every sense a magnificent gentleman. He was of
commanding presence, being about six’ feet high and sym-
metrically formed. He was a man of intelligence, possessed
a high order of courage and very great self-reliance, all of
which combined to make him the type of the Confederate sol-
dier. He commanded the regiment until 5 August, 1864,
when he was made Brigadier-General, succeeding to the com-
mand of Hoke’s Brigade, and was killed in the battle near
Winchester 19 September, 1864.

James A. Craige, the Major of the regiment, had seen ser-
vice with the Sixth Regiment prior to his appointment to
the Fifty-seventh, and the writer, the Lieutenant-Colonel,
had seen service as a Captain in the Fifth North Carolina

State Troops. Of the company officers, non-commissioned
officers and privates, few, if any, had seen any active service.
There were many Scotch-Irish from Rowan, Iredell, Cabar-
rus, and Mecklenburg; there were Germans from Catawba,
Lincoln, Rowan, Forsyth and Alamance. They had been
reared in the ways of peace, but they made magnificent sol-
diers, patient, enduring and fearless.

THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG.

After the regiment was organized at Salisbury, in the
summer of 1862, it was ordered to Richmond, and was there
attached to Davis’ Brigade in the division of General G. W.
Smith, commanding the Department at Richmond. The
main army at the time lay along the line of the Rapidan.
The Fifty-seventh Regiment remained at Richmond until
6 November. While there it had been carefully drilled and
admirably disciplined ; it was well equipped, and when it was
sent, in November, to join the army upon the Rapidan, it
numbered more than 800 rifles, and was a soldierly-looking
body of men. It was attached to Law’s Brigade, Hood’s
Division, along with the Fourth Alabama, Sixth North Caro-

Firty-SEVENTH REGIMENT. 407

lina and Fifty-fourth North Carolina. Within a few weeks
after it joined the army at the front, came the battle of Fred-
ericksburg, on 13 December, 1862. In that battle the Con-
federate army occupied a semi-circular line of hills that over-
looked the river bottom below Fredericksburg, and terminat-
ing at Marye’s Heights, just above the town. The enemy
occupied Fredericksburg, the river bottom, and the Bow-
ling Green road that runs not far from the river. Across
this river bottom ran the railroad, about half way be
tween the Confederate line and the Bowling Green road.
The fight began on the Confederate right and left. Furi-
ous assaults had been made on Marye’s Heights and had
been repulsed. Repeated assaults had been made on A. P.
Hill’s Division on the Confederate right, and were meeting
with momentary success, when the Federal troops were driven
back by General Hoke, then a Colonel commanding a brigade.
During this furious fighting on the extreme right and left,
the Federal troops had effected a lodgment in the railroad
cut just where it crosses the small stream known as Hazel
Run. This railroad cut was just deep enough to make an
excellent breastwork for infantry, and the position was occu-
pied by a brigade of New Jersey troops. Two commands
had been sent by General Hood to dislodge this force from
the railroad, but were both repulsed. A line. of woods
stretched along the outer edge of the river bottom, where
the ground was marshy, and between this line and the rail-
road there was some six or eight hundred yards of almost
level ground. About 3 o’clock in the evening General Law
was ordered by General Hood to make another effort to clear
the enemy from the railroad. He ordered the Fifty-seventh
Regiment to make the attack, supported by the Fifty-fourth
North Carolina, also a new regiment. The regiment, when
it received the order, was in the woods just spoken of, and in
order to clear the woods, owing to swamps and thickets, was
compelled to go across a corduroy road out into the open. It
went by fours-left-in-front. As the first company cleared
the woods, a battery opened on it from the Bowling Green
road, yet under this fire, company after company, as it
cleared the woods, went steadily into line without a falter or

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