The Last Ninety Days of the War in North-Carolina

by Cornelia Phillips Spencer

In looking over the list of even so few as are recorded above, one is struck with the number of those killed, of whom interesting and touching obituary memorials might be written. Nearly all of them were men of rank. One of the most widely read and admired and useful religious biographies of the day has been Miss Marsh's Life of Captain Hedley Vicars of the English Crimean Army. We had many a Captain Vicars in our Southern Confederate army, whose life, if written as well, would be quite as striking, quite as valuable—many pure and noble Christian young men, the beauty of whose daily lives still sheds a glow around their memories. It was in fact a common remark, during the war, that it was the best who fell. I am sure that North-Carolinians, at least, will not be displeased with particular mention of a few of their dead in this place.

Of the six tutors connected with the University at the opening of the war, all of whom volunteered at once, five—namely, Captains Anderson, Bryan, Johnson, Morrow, and Lieutenant Royster—fell on the battle-field, and they were all, without one exception, young men of more than ordinary promise.

Captain Anderson, of Wilmington, was a brother of General George B. Anderson. He graduated with the highest distinction in the year 1858. His class consisted of ninety-four members, nearly all of whom it is believed entered the army. Two of the seven who shared the first distinction with him—one subsequently tutor in the University, W.C. Dowd, the other Captain W.C. Lord, of Salisbury—are in their graves.

Captain William Adams, of Greensboro, whose name occurs first on the roll of his classmates, was killed at Sharpsburgh. Captain Hugh T. Brown, (half-brother to General Gordon,) fell at Springfield; and Lieutenant Thomas Cowan, at Sharpsburgh. Among those who have survived the perils of the battle-field and the hospital, are Lieutenant-Colonels H.C. Jones, A.C. McAllister, and J.T. Morehead, Colonels John A. Gilmer and L.M. McAfee, and General Robert D. Johnston.

Captain Anderson was a candidate for orders in the Episcopal Church, but believed it his duty to contribute his share to the vindication of the rights of his country. He served with continually increasing reputation, and fell in the battle of the Wilderness Creek.

Captain George Pettigrew Bryan, of Raleigh, was another most rare spirit. Belonging to the class of 1860, enumerated above, he was the youngest of eight who received the first distinction. During his college life, and throughout the whole of his brief but brilliant career, he was as conspicuous for his fidelity to duty as for his intellectual attainments. He, too, was to have consecrated his rare gifts to the ministry of the Church. He fell, while leading a charge on the enemy's works, ten miles east of Richmond. Mortally wounded in the breast, he said, "Boys, I'm killed, but I wish I could live to see you take those works." In a few moments the works were carried and the enemy routed. In half an hour after, he died peacefully and calmly: his promotion to lieutenant-colonel arriving just after his death.

Captain George B. Johnson, of Edenton, a graduate of 1859, bearing away the highest honors, died in Chapel Hill of a decline brought on by the hardships of prison life at Sandusky, Ohio. One of his professors wrote of him: "His powers of mind were unusual, his energy of character very marked, his tastes all scholarly, and his attainments extensive and accurate. Always pure and upright and truthful and unselfish. Never was a whisper of reproach or censure uttered against him."

Lieutenant I. Royster, of Raleigh, was one of the graduates of this University who would have shed a lustre on its name had he lived. One of the eight of 1860 who received the first distinction, he was in many respects a remarkable genius—intellectually one of the most gifted young men who ever left these halls. He fell at Gettysburgh, advancing to the charge considerably in front of his company and singing "Dixie" as he met his instant death.

Captain E. Graham Morrow, of Chapel Hill, fell at Gettysburgh. Another noble, modest, gallant, and true young man. He was a son of North-Carolina in a particular sense, for he came of fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and ancestors even more remote who had been an honor to the same soil before him. On these six slight memorials there is yet a crown to be placed. These young men were all Christians. That light above any that ever shone by sea or shore falls upon their graves.

In the list of the Seniors of 1860 given above, of the eight who received the first honors of the University, but three survive; of the twenty-seven distinguished (more than a third of the whole number) ten are no more. Of the twenty-four dead, who shall estimate the loss to their country, and to their families of even these? Of one of the fairest and best, Captain John Fain, of Warren, who was the only child of his mother, and she a widow; killed after passing safely through four years of peril and suffering, and falling in the last day of the last fight before Petersburg, April 2d, 1865. Another of the first eight was Junius C. Battle, of Chapel Hill, fourth son of the Law Professor, Judge Battle. Having suffered amputation of the left leg, after the battle of South-Mountain, he occupied such of the few remaining hours of his life as he could redeem from his own sufferings, in reading to the crowd of Confederate and Federal wounded around him. We can well imagine, wrote a friend, how eloquent such reading was to such an audience. The reader's own eye was fast glazing, and the pains of death among strangers were upon him, but he rallied the remnants of his vision and self-control, and spent them in directing the fading eyes around him to that WICKET-GATE and SHINING LIGHT. Surely it was a cup of cold water given in the name of his Master, and even now is abundantly rewarded.