LOOKING BACK: Hundreds of Iredell veterans died in Civil War

Last Tuesday, April 12, was the sesquicentennial — the 150th anniversary — of the beginning of the American Civil War, perhaps the most tragic event in our nation's history. 

Altogether there were some 618,000 who died from battle wounds or disease, 258,000 who wore the gray or butternut of the Confederate States and 360,000 who wore Union blue. An average of 600 Americans (Confederate and Union) died every day during the War Between the States. In addition, untold thousands were physically or mentally wounded. Homes, crops, factories and railways were destroyed on a scale that we can hardly imagine. Some of the issues that the war supposedly settled are still with us and may never entirely fade from America's history.

While the issue of slavery was not the sole root of the conflict, had there been no slavery in the United States in 1861, there probably would have been no war. A series of compromises between the South and the North delayed the start of the war, but could not prevent it.

North Carolina was one of the original 13 colonies and two Tar Heels, Andrew Jackson and James Knox Polk, had been elected to the White House. Even after it was announced that the Republican Abraham Lincoln had won the presidential election, North Carolinians for the most part adopted a wait-and-see attitude as to what would happen with Lincoln's presidency. 

Most voters in this area were Whigs, but there had been talk in Iredell County by those in favor of seceding — withdrawing from the federal Union. David Henry Brantley of south Iredell, later a Confederate soldier in Company G of the 38th N.C. Regiment, remembered when he was a young man hearing a pro-secession speech at Creswell Springs, an antebellum resort located south of what would later be Mooresville. There, a Mr. R.I. McDowell had addressed a crowd, saying "... the Yankees would not fight, we could whip them with barlow knives and corn stalks. The blood lost would not stain his white pocket handkerchief."

Unlike those hotheaded "fire-eaters" to the south of us, the citizens of the Old North State were very conservative and hesitant about joining the new government of seceded states that would be set up in Montgomery, Ala. 

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What follows is an article that was printed in the old Iredell Express newspaper, of Feb. 24, 1860, titled, "Whig Meeting in Iredell." It is printed verbatim.

At a meeting of the Whigs and Americans of Iredell, held at the Court House in Statesville, on Saturday, the 14 of February:

On motion, Capt. J. S. Allison was called to the Chair, and G. H. White requested to act as Secretary. L. Q. Sharpe, Esq., briefly explained the object of the meeting, and moved that the Chair appoint a Committee of three to draft resolutions for the consideration of the meeting, whereupon the Chair appointed Messrs. L. Q. Sharpe, E. M. Campbell and E. B. Drake, who, after retiring, reported as follows:

Resolved, That we, the Whigs of Iredell county, heartily approve of the course pursued in the Congress of the United States by our representative, Gen. J. M. Leach, and all those who acted with him.

Resolved, That we are for the Union and the Constitution, and the enforcement of the Laws as they now exist.

Resolved, That Abolition and Secession are but milder terms for treason against the United States, and ought to be discountenanced by all true patriots.

Resolved, That we approve of the Convention to be held at Raleigh on the 22d, inst., and pledge ourselves to heartily support the nominee of the same for Governor.

Resolved, That the Chairman of this meeting appoint forty delegates to attend said Convention.

Statesville- L. Q. Sharpe, Col. A. Mitchell, J. W. Woodward, F. D. Stockton, E. B. Drake, Dr. W. M. Campbell, Dr. H. Kelly, Capt. A. K. Simonton, R. H. Hill, Esq., Col. F. A. Allison, R. R. White, Esq., Capt. J. A. Davidson, Thos. Woods, A. R. Laurance.

Hall's- Dr. J.R.B. Adams, Portland Gay, Esq.

Olin- Dr. Hugh Hill, Perry Tomlin, Esq., Henry L. Gill.

Williamsburg- John H. Dalton, A.B.F. Gaither, Esq., Henry S. Fost, Amos Gaither, Esq.

Sharpe's- J. W. Williams, Esq., Azel Dickens.

Holland's- Wm. H. Barnsley, R. S. Lawrance.

Liberty Hill- Abner Feimster, R. M. Johnson, Thos. A. James, Esq., W. H. Haynes.

Watt's- L. W. Morrison, Col. J. S. Watts.

Cook's- J. W. Kerr, Esq., Edwin Falls, J. W. Brawley, J. L. Wallace, James Young, J. F. Johnston.

Reid's- Moses A. White, R. R. Templeton, W. J. Brawley, G. F. Davidson, R. J. McDowell, J. Harris, R.E. Johnston, J. C. Hargrave.

On motion, it was ordered that the proceedings be published in the Iredell Express. 

J.S. Allison. Ch'n., G.H. White, Sec'y. 

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This is a list of the most influential men in Iredell County at the time. While they did not support the sudden abolition of slavery, these men likewise did not support seceding from the Union, labeling such an act to be "treason." 

Following the firing on federal Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, S.C., on April 12, 1861, Lincoln's Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, called for troops from North Carolina to assist in quelling the "insurrection." North Carolina Gov. John Ellis sent a telegram to Washington in reply, telling Mr. Cameron, "Sir, ...you can get no troops from North Carolina."

Five weeks after the call for troops, North Carolina and Iredell County, for better or worse, separated from the Union, symbolically, on May 20, 1861, the anniversary of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence from the British Empire. 

Although slow to join the Confederacy, once in, the state went whole hog. North Carolina furnished more men to the Confederacy than any other state even though it was not the most populous seceded state. According to William S. Powell's Encyclopedia of North Carolina (2006), our state furnished about 134,000 men to state and Confederate service. Of this total, about 20,000 died from battle and about 21,000 died from disease, or about one in three men.

Many people do not know that an estimated 8,000 white and black North Carolinians served the Union cause.

Iredell County supplied between 1,800 and 2,000 men to the cause of the Confederacy. About a third, 600 to 700 Iredell men, died in the struggle.

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In July 1913, 50 years after the Battle of Gettysburg, considered to be the turning point of the war, there was a reunion of Confederate and Union veterans on the very grounds near that small Pennsylvania town. Some 50,000 veterans attended, making it the largest combined reunion ever held. All honorably discharged Union and Confederate veterans were invited, not just the survivors of the battle there.

On July 3, 1913, the old Rebels, many of whom were once members of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, assembled once again, facing their old adversaries, the men of the Union's Army of the Potomac. At a signal the old Johnny Rebs advanced in sweltering heat toward the Billy Yanks, just as they had a half century before, many now using canes and crutches. Up the slope they went toward the stone wall on the Cemetery Ridge. 

As the old Confederates approached the low wall, many of the old Union veterans left their positions and rushed to meet the Confederate veterans. The old veterans embraced each other. Many of them wept openly.