588 Norta Carouina Troops, 1861-’65.

Gregory Major. The Third, composed of the Fourth,
Seventh and Eighth Battalions, on 3 January, 1865, elected
John W. Hinsdale Colonel, W. Foster French, Lieutenant-
Colonel, and A. B. Ellington, Major. Another battalion
while being organized in camp of instruction at Morganton,
was attacked by a considerable force of Federal raiders, sur-
rounded and part of it was captured 28 June, 1864, but the
remnant was recruited and formed two companies which were
attached to Millard’s Battalion.

It was the intention of Congress to place as light a burden
upon the Reserves as possible, and President Davis spoke
with keen regret of the unfortunate necessity of “grinding up
the seed corn of the Confederacy.” But it is by no means
sure that it would not have been a wiser policy simply to have
reduced the age of enlistment, and to have mustered the young
recruits into the regiments already in the field. The Re-
serves were supposed to have been detailed for less dangerous
duty, but in other respects they were not so well off. Their
arms, clothing and equipment of every kind, were deficient in
quality and quantity, even as compared with that of the other
troops. All the field officers had seen previous service, but
the men and the great majority of the company officers were
inexperienced in camp life, and it was hard to impress them
with the necessity for rigid sanitary precautions. Besides,
they were stationed during the summer and autumn of 1864,
in the unhealthy portions of the State, and the unacclimated
boys from the Western and Central counties suffered greatly
from disease. An epidemic of measles raged with great
severity and proved in many instances fatal.

And thus without much loss in battle, ordered here and
there as necessity arose, bearing the privations of camp, the
fatigue of forced marches and the weakening of disease, like
the brave lads they were, becoming better disciplined day by
day but many of their best men being sent off to the regu-
lar service as they became 18 years of age, they saw the year
1864, eventful in other fields, wearing to its close. In De
cember the battalions, which afterwards composed the third
regiment, were stationed near Wilmington, and the First and
Second Regiments were in camp on the Roanoke. It was of

THe JuNIoR Reserves BRIGADE. 589

great importance that the railroad and bridges at these strate-
gic points should be well guarded, as they were much ex-
posed to sudden raids. At this time the enemy who were in
the trenches in front of Petersburg, made an effort to cut the
line of railroad between Weldon and Petersburg, and thus cut
off the supplies upon which Lee’s army was dependent for
bread.

The Junior Reserves could not be compelled to cross the
State line, but when the First and Second Regiments were
drawn out in line of battle and the proposition made to them
to volunteer for service in Virginia, not one man declined,
and the four battalions from Wilmington (Fourth, Seventh,
Eighth and Ninth) under Colonel ‘George Jackson, joined
them. With cheers and enthusiasm more characteristic of
the days of .“‘sixty-one” than of the closing scenes of the war,
the boys made haste to go. The shoes recently issued to them
canvass apologies, wretched ghosts of shoes at best, had in
many instances given completely out before the march began,
and repeating the hard experience of their ancestors at Valley
Forge, many of these young heroes marched barefoot into bat-
tle upon the sleet-covered ground. The enemy had destroyed
a part of the railroad, but were met by the Reserves at Bel-
field and driven back, and the threatened danger was averted.
For this service the General Assembly unanimously passed a
resolution tendering to the Junior Reserves for their gallantry
and good conduct, the thanks of the people of North Carolina.

The first regiment was then rapidly marched into Mar-
tin County, and at Poplar Point, under Colonel Leventhorpe,
drove back with the aid of Dickson’s Battery, a threatened at-
tack of the Federal gunboats which had been devastating that
section and threatening the rich grain fields of the Roanoke.

During the same December those battalions which had Te-
turned from Belfield were destined to take part in a more im-
portant battle. For many months the attention of the Fed-
eral commanders had been especially directed to Wilmington
and its defences. The impossibility of maintaining an effec-
tive blockade, and the great service done the Confederacy by
the importation of so many articles indispensable to the vari-