FIRST BATTALION—SHARPSHOOTERS.

R. W. Wharton, Major.
R. E. Wilson, Captain, Co, A.

3.
4,

James A. Blum, Sergeant, Co. A.
George E. Nissen, Sergeant, Co. B.

FIKST BATTALION.

(SHARPSHOOTERS. )

By R. W. WHARTON, Maysor..

This battalion was organized in April, 1862, and was com-
posed of two companies from the Twenty-first North Caro-
lina Regiment.

That regiment originally had twelve companies. At its
reorganization in April, 1862, the two commanded, origi-
nally, by Captains John K. Connally and R. W. Wharton, -
were organized into a battalion, R. W. Wharton with the
rank of Major commanding. Captain Connally having pre-
viously resigned, Company A, of the battalion, was com-
manded by Captain R. E. Wilson, and Company B by Cap-
tain P. D. Headley. Both companies were organized in May,
1861, Company A, in Yadkin county, and Company B, in
Forsyth. Most of the members of the two companies were
from those two counties, though there were some from the ad-
joining counties.

The history of the Twenty-first Regiment, originally the
Eleventh Volunteers, is the history of the two companies
composing the battalion during the first year of the war.
The Twenty-first North Carolina Regiment, though com-
posed entirely of North Carolina troops, was organized at
Danville, Va., in June, 1861, where it remained about three
weeks, engaged in company and battalion drill. It went
thence to Richmond, Va., and stopping there four or five
days, proceeded by railroad, towards Winchester, Va., to join

Norr.—There was also a First Battalion of Junior Reserves which was
later merged into the Seventieth Regiment whereupon the Ninth (Mil-
lard’s) Battalion was designated the First Battalion and as such attached
to the Junior Reserves Brigade. Its story is herein told under the head-
ing ‘‘Twentieth Battalion.’’ There was also a First Battalion of Senior
Reserves whose career is told later on as the ‘Twenty first Battalion.’’
Moore’s Roster gives also the ‘‘ First Battalion Heavy Artillery” whose
career is narrated further on under the heading “‘Ninth Battalion”? and
the First Battalion of Thomas Legions later Kightieth North Carolina.

—ED.
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