Covered with Glory: the 26Th North Carolina Infantry at the Battle Of
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Covered with Glory Also by Rod Gragg Confederate Goliath: The Battle of Fort Fisher The Illustrated Confederate Reader The Old West Quiz and Fact Book The Civil War Quiz & Fact Book Planters, Pirates, and Patriots Bobby Bagley: P. O.W. Covered with Glory THE 26TH NORTH CAROLINA INFANTRY AT GETTYSBURG Rod Gragg =B*#C8:#=H3*38=83'#*58:: 5'#'' This work is dedicated to three mountaineers from the Globe: Charles Lemuel Gragg (1891–1974) Coma Adelaide Gragg (1891–1971) and their son, Lemuel Wallace Gragg (1914–1998) © 2000 by Rod Gragg All rights reserved Designed by Adam W. Cohen Maps by Mark Stein Manufactured in the United States of America Originally published by HarperCollins in 2000. Paperback edition published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2010. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003. The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition as follows: Gragg, Rod. Covered with glory : the 26th North Carolina Infantry at Gettysburg / Rod Gragg.—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Gettysburg (Pa.), Battle of, 1863. 2. Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Infantry Regiment, 26th. 3. North Carolina— History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Regimental Histories. 4. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Regimental Histories. I. Title. E475.53 .G72 2000 973.7'349—dc21 99-089035 ISBN 978-0-8078-7140-9 (pbk.: alk. paper) 141312111054321 Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly forgotten as a dream Dies at the opening day. —“O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” a hymn popular during the Civil War This page intentionally left blank Contents • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS • IX • INTRODUCTION • “I WAS ONCE A SOLDIER” XV • 1 • GOOD, HONEST AMERICAN STOCK 1 • 2 • INTO THE JAWS OF CERTAIN DEATH 17 • 3 • WE ARE ON OUR WAY 37 • 4 • “MAY THE GOOD LORD TAKE CARE OF THE PORE SOLDIERS” 52 • 5 • “SUMMER IS ENDED” 73 • 6 • “LIKE WHEAT BEFORE THE SICKLE” 101 viii Contents • 7 • COVERED WITH GLORY 117 • 8 • “THE SICKENING HORRORS OF WAR” 137 • 9 • “ALL WERE WILLING TO DIE” 153 • 10 • “TERRIBLE AS AN ARMY WITH BANNERS” 175 • 11 • “UNCONQUERED IN SPIRIT” 202 • EPILOGUE • “STEADFAST TO THE LAST” 221 NOTES 246 BIBLIOGRAPHY 279 INDEX 294 Acknowledgments Even in the late 1950s, the fireplace was the only source of heat in my grandparents’ farmhouse parlor. Upstairs there was no heat—and winter nights could be icy cold in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Layers of quilts on the upstairs beds would eventually overcome the chill, but the inevitable shock of cold sheets was a sensation that deserved to be delayed as long as possible. Knowing that you soon would have to brave that cold upstairs bedroom made sitting around the parlor fire even more appealing. Many houses in the Globe, the mountain farming community that was our ancestral home, were still heated solely by fireplaces in the late fifties. America was plotting a space race to the moon, but most folks in my grandparents’ iso- lated mountain community were still without telephones, central heat or indoor plumbing. If my grandparents felt underprivileged by the absence of such conveniences, they never complained around us grandchildren. Like many of his generation, my father had left the mountains during the Great Depression to find a paying job. After a stint in the Civilian Conservation Corps and military service for the duration in World War II, he had pursued postwar success in a small town far away from the family farm. Raised in town, I eagerly seized every opportunity to visit my mountain grandparents. Not only did I treasure time with Granny and Granddaddy, who doted on all their grand- children, but a visit to their Appalachian community was like time travel back- ward to another century. The nearest place with street lights, supermarkets and telephones was almost an hour’s drive away on winding mountain roads. In the summer we splashed in the creek or fished for trout. In the fall and winter we squirrel-hunted on the mountain ridges or tracked rabbits in the snow. There were jars of fruit in the smokehouse, honey fresh from the hives, and warm biscuits waiting on the cast-iron wood-stove. We romped with the hunting dogs, rode bareback on the plow-horse, played on the hay bales in the x Acknowledgments barn loft, and cheerfully gathered eggs and firewood. Daytime offered a vari- ety of adventures, but our most memorable pastime occurred only at night. After the supper dishes were cleared, the grownups would pull the straight- back chairs from the table and sit in a semi-circle around the parlor fireplace, where a blaze was habitually kept alive. On every visit my brother and I would routinely prolong the climb to the cold upstairs bedrooms. We were mesmer- ized not only by the parlor fire—but also by the old-timers’ tales. Talk of poli- tics, baseball, the doings in Blowing Rock or Lenoir, and local news from the surrounding farm families was always just a prelude. Eventually, the talk would turn to “the War.” Talk about World War II exploits was apparently deemed too fresh, too modern or too immodest; tales of “the War” were always about that war—the War Between the States. My wiry, craggy-faced grandfather had a fascinating repertoire of stories about mountain folks and the war. Blessed with the Southerner’s pleasant drawl, he would verbally unfold his accounts at a mountaineer’s natural pace—slow and steady—as he methodically opened a cherry-red tin of Prince Albert smoking tobacco and constructed a roll-your-own cigarette. His captivating cadence was usually interrupted only by an appropriate chuckle or an appreciative grunt from other grownups, although my great-grandfather—in his nineties and wearing a white handlebar mustache—occasionally exercised family rank with a terse comment while leaning on his walking stick. Staring trancelike into the flames, I heard tales about hard men and hard times—tales of bushwhackers and battle scars, of Southern soldiers bound to do their duty, of local Unionists hiding from the Home Guard in the moun- tain wilds, and resourceful farm wives who thwarted Yankee raiders by bury- ing the family valuables beneath the collard patch. There were stories about Keese Blalock the renegade, and tales about Stoneman’s Raid—when the Yan- kees reportedly carried off pro-South menfolk and shot loyal slaves. There were also whimsical tales about Scalawags and Carpetbaggers, and serious stories that conveyed respect for the common Southern soldier. I don’t remember hearing specific references to the Hibriten Guards, which included many boys from the Globe community, or even direct mention of the 26th North Car- olina, but there were comments aplenty about men who had served in the reg- iment. As a boy at the turn of the century, my grandfather had known many of them and their families—Moores, Coffeys, Esteses, Crumps, and others. Hearing such stories left me amazed at the grit of these Tarheel soldiers— gumption, they called it in the mountains—and it did even more. It made me Acknowledgments xi deeply aware of the proximity of “the War”—so close that my grandfather and even my father had actually seen and touched and talked to men who had been there. The men and women whose stories I heard while sitting before the fire were not one-dimensional characters on the page of a book. They were real people, who had lived history. I was left with the notion that compre- hending history—an era, an event, a war, a battle—required discovering the details about the real people involved. So, I am indebted to my grandparents on my father’s side, Charles and Adelaide Gragg, and to my maternal grandparents, Oak and Lula Lunsford, for kindling my curiosity about history. In a way, this book had its origin in the firelit parlor of that long gone home-place near the headwaters of John’s River, when old men bequeathed heartfelt history to young boys. Others made fundamental contributions. My father, Lemuel Wallace Gragg—reti- cent, responsible, knowledgeable and always faithful to his family—had a mountaineer’s quiet gumption and a scholar’s devotion to reading. Without saying a word, he taught me to love books. My mother, Elizabeth Lunsford Gragg—joyful, selfless, and devout—happily placed book after book in my hands, transported me to historic sites far and near, and implanted in me a lifelong devotion to faith, family, history, travel and the Blue Ridge. When our family transportation consisted of a single pickup truck my father used in his work, she made a mile-long march to the library seem like a great adven- ture. Equipped with a limited budget, a station wagon, air mattresses and a road map, she cheerfully organized, promoted and directed a family vacation in 1958 that introduced me to Gettysburg. This book and everything else I’ve written bears her positive, behind-the-scenes encouragement. My brother Ted and my cousins Bob and Charles were my boyhood mentors. They fueled my interest in the Civil War, fostered my respect for the soldiers in blue and gray and kindled interests that eventually led to this book. M. S. “Buz” Wyeth Jr., now retired from his post of executive editor at HarperCollins, was instrumental in developing this project. He has been a valuable mentor and friend, and I learned a lot from him while writing five books under his editorship.