THE GORDON-BARRINGEK
- BRIGADE.

By JULIAN 8. CARR, Private Company K, Forry-First
Nortu Carouina Troops.

 

 

 

This brigade first organized as the “North Carolina Cav-
alry Brigade” 9 September, 1863, under command of General
Lawrence S. Baker, and then consisted of the Ninth, Nine
teenth, Fifty-ninth and Sixty-third North Carolina Regi-
ments (First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Cavalry.) General
Baker, because of a wound, was soon assigned to special duty.
On 2 June, 1863, General Lee had written to President Davis
his purpose “to brigade the North Carolina Regiments of
Cavalry in his army under Colonel Baker,” Vol. 25, Off. Rec.
Union and Confed. Armies, p. 1088. Colonel Baker was
promoted to Brigadier-General 23 July, 1863.

On 28 September, 1863, James B. Gordon, Colonel of the
Ninth, was commissioned Brigadier-General and took com-
mand of the brigade. Under General Gordon it made
famous its name of “The North Carolina Cavalry Bri-
gade,” and was thus, to the end of the war, widely known
throughout the Army of Northern Virginia and by a very
great many in the Army of the Potomac. Of course, it was
often spoken and written of as Gordon’s and afterwards as
Barringer’s Brigade.

Gordon was a genius of war, a “veritable god of battle.”
He did more than any other one man to make his brigade
what it was, and had he lived his brigade would have placed
his name as high on North Carolina’s “Roll of Honor” as
that of any Confederate, if not higher. At Brook Church,
Virginia, 12 May, 1864, he received a wound which proved
mortal within a week.

CAVALRY REGIMENTS. Near the end of May, 1864, the Forty-first North Carolina

D. D. Ferebee, Colonel, 59th Regt. (4Cav.) 6. Stephen W. Rice, Orderly for Col. C. M. An- Regiment (Third Cavalry) joined the brigade from Eastern

1.
2. Benj. G. Smith, Captain, Co. G, 41st Regt

any Ge : | 06.5, egt. ws, Co. B, 19th Regt. (2 Cav.)! orth Carolina and took the place of the Fifty-ninth (Fourth
3. Wm. H. Smith, Captain, Co. G, 41st Regt. a Regt te sipsonaclisilat co: " , ’
4.
5.

 

 

 

(3 Cav.) a. i
‘ 8. J. A. Ram te, C R
Wm. H. Penny, Private, Co. I, 41st Regt. (2 Gav.) gy Cee on id patie won

(3 Cav.) D
’ . ra 9. John R. Pettit, Private, Co. F, 75th Regt.
Io dayne Berets Co. K, 19th Regt. (7 Cav.) .