$12 Norra Carona Troops, 1861-65.

with the army to Kinston, N. C., being attached to Hagood’s
Brigade after the fall of Fort Fisher. At the battle of
“Southwest Creek” (or “Wise’s Fork”), below Kinston, 8-10
March, 1865, the battalion was engaged slightly with a por-
tion of Schofield’s Corps, suffering some loss. It was in the
retreat to Smithfield and thence marched to Bentonville. In
that battle 19-21 March, the battalion was on the extreme
right of Hagood’s Brigade, which formed the left of John-
ston’s Army. In the assault on the enemy’s works Sunday
evening, 19 March, the battalion captured the first line of
the enemy’s works in their front, their supports getting to
the work but falling back. The supports consisted of Ha-
good’s and Colquitt’s Brigades, but the battalion held the
works taken for about an hour. The troops on the right and
left falling back, the battalion then retired.

In this charge Colonel John D. Taylor was wounded, Cap-
tain Rankin mortally wounded, Captain Taylor killed, all
the Lieutenants except Allen wounded, and the command was
now brought off in charge of Lieutenant J. A. Gilchrist, him-
self wounded, the command falling back under fire. In this
last desperate charge in the last battle of Johnston’s army, in
the last battle on North Carolina soil, Lieutenant-Colonel
John D. Taylor carried the First Battalion in 257 strong,
and it lost on the field in killed and wounded 152 men, or 57
per cent. of its strength.

IN REAR OF SHERMAN.

On the second day after the action, and in the night, the
position of the battalion was flanked, and it was moved for-
ward to the left, and the works held until Wednesday mor::-
ing after the battle. The battalion was then attached to
Whitford’s command and ordered to Tarboro. The com-
mand remained there about a week. From there it was or-
dered to a point on the railroad below Weldon, checking an
advance of the enemy in that quarter. From there it was
ordered to Elizabethtown, in Bladen County, for outpost duty
on the upper Cape Fear, when the surrender of General John-
ston was reported. It was one of the organizations that was
never formally surrendered, and upon the receipt of this news

Ninto Barration. 313

the commanding officer disbanded the battalion and the men
were sent to their homes with their arms. Major McRae and
Adjutant William Calder went to Wilmington, and were
paroled in May, 1865.

The above is an imperfect narrative of this command. It
was not on the fields of carnage and glory in Virginia, it was
not at Gettysburg nor at Chancellorsville, nor in the deadly
tangles of the Wilderness; but in garrison services which
stayed the Confederacy, in coolness when it stood for battle,
in courage when it met the enemy’s onset, and in gallantry
when it stormed his works and forced his lines, its members
may claim a place well up in the record of North Carolina
in the “heroic period,” as men who equaled in valor their com-
rades of any other arm, in faithful service to the State and in
loyal devotion to the South.

T. A. MoNer1.

Lumberton, N. C.,
2 May, 1901.

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