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11th North Carolina Infantry Regiment (Bethel
Regiment)
11th Infantry Regiment was organized at Camp Mangum, near Raleigh,
North Carolina, in March 1862. The nucleus of this unit was comprised of men with prior service in the 1st North Carolina Infantry Regiment, a.k.a. Bethel Regiment. Its members were from the counties of Mecklenburg,
Burke, Bertie, Chowan, Orange, Lincoln, and Buncombe. Assigned to the Department of North Carolina, it fought at White Hall* and then relocated to Virginia. While in
Virginia, the unit was assigned to General Pettigrew's, Kirkland's, and MacRae's Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia. It fought on many battlefields from Gettysburg to Cold Harbor, endured the hardships of the Siege of Petersburg, and saw action around Appomattox. It lost over half of the 617 at Gettysburg, reported 15 casualties at Bristoe, and surrendered 8 officers and 74 men. The field officers were Colonels Collett
Leventhorpe and William J. Martin, Lieutenant Colonels Francis W. Bird and William A. Owens, and Major Egbert A. Ross.
*Captain Taylor, of Union General Foster's signal service, reported
that the fire from the Eleventh during the Battle of White Hall, of the Goldsboro Expedition, was "one of the severest musketry
fires I have ever seen!" Colonel W. J. Martin, historian of the Eleventh regiment, says of the conduct of his regiment: "Posted
along the [Neuse] river bank, from which another [Confederate] regiment had just been driven back, it was pounded for several
hours at short range by a terrific storm of grape and canister, as well as musketry; but it never flinched, and gained a reputation
for endurance and courage which it proudly maintained to the fateful end."
| North Carolina Civil War Battlefield Map |
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| North Carolina Civil War Map |
Advance to:
Recommended Reading: More Terrible than Victory: North Carolina's
Bloody Bethel
Regiment, 1861-65 (368 Pages). Description: Craig Chapman
presents the definitive history of the First North Carolina Volunteers / 11th Regiment North Carolina Troops--the legendary
Bethel Regiment. The 1st North Carolina Volunteers struck history as it engaged in the Civil War's first land battle and witnessed
the first soldier killed in the great conflict. Chapman conveys the compelling history of these brave men as they left hearth
and home in defense of their state, beliefs and ideals. Most of the unit's raw, young recruits had never traveled
outside of North Carolina, nor fired a weapon in combat.
Continued below...
"That all changed, and it dramatically changed their lives
forever..." After an enlistment of six months, North Carolina's First Regiment disbanded. Most of
the men then enlisted in the Eleventh NC Regiment, commonly referred to as the Bloody
Bethel Regiment, and fought in the bloodiest battles and campaigns of the Civil War. About the Author: Craig S. Chapman commands one of the North Carolina National Guard infantry
battalions that traces its lineage to the Eleventh Regiment North Carolina Troops, the unit that started out as the First
North Carolina Volunteers and nicknamed the Bethel Regiment. Chapman resides in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Recommended
Reading: Confederate Military History Of North Carolina: North Carolina In The Civil War, 1861-1865. Description: The author, Prof. D. H. Hill, Jr., was the son of Lieutenant
General Daniel Harvey Hill (North Carolina produced only
two lieutenant generals and it was the second highest rank in the army) and his mother was the sister to General “Stonewall”
Jackson’s wife. In Confederate Military History Of North Carolina,
Hill discusses North Carolina’s massive task of preparing and mobilizing for the conflict; the many regiments and battalions
recruited from the Old North State; as well as the state's numerous contributions during the war. Continued below...
During
Hill's Tar
Heel State study, the reader begins with
interesting and thought-provoking statistical data regarding the 125,000 "Old
North State" soldiers that fought
during the course of the war and the 40,000 that perished. Hill advances with the Tar Heels to the first battle at Bethel, through numerous bloody campaigns and battles--including North Carolina’s
contributions at the "High Watermark" at Gettysburg--and concludes with Lee's surrender at
Appomattox.
Recommended
Reading: The Civil War in North Carolina.
Description: Numerous battles and skirmishes
were fought in North Carolina during the Civil War, and
the campaigns and battles themselves were crucial in the grand strategy of the conflict and involved some of the most famous
generals of the war. John Barrett presents the complete story of military engagements across the state, including the classical
pitched battle of Bentonville--involving Generals Joe Johnston and William Sherman--the siege of Fort Fisher, the amphibious campaigns on the
coast, and cavalry sweeps such as General George Stoneman's Raid. Also available
in hardcover: The Civil War in North Carolina .
Recommended Viewing: The Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns. Review: The
Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns is the most successful public-television miniseries in American history. The 11-hour Civil War didn't just captivate a nation,
reteaching to us our history in narrative terms; it actually also invented a new film language taken from its creator. When
people describe documentaries using the "Ken Burns approach," its style is understood: voice-over narrators reading letters
and documents dramatically and stating the writer's name at their conclusion, fresh live footage of places juxtaposed with
still images (photographs, paintings, maps, prints), anecdotal interviews, and romantic musical scores taken from the era
he depicts. Continued below...
The Civil War uses all of these devices to evoke atmosphere and resurrect an event that many knew
only from stale history books. While Burns is a historian, a researcher, and a documentarian, he's above all a gifted storyteller,
and it's his narrative powers that give this chronicle its beauty, overwhelming emotion, and devastating horror. Using the
words of old letters, eloquently read by a variety of celebrities, the stories of historians like Shelby Foote and rare, stained
photos, Burns allows us not only to relearn and finally understand our history, but also to feel and experience it. "Hailed
as a film masterpiece and landmark in historical storytelling." "[S]hould be a requirement for every
student."
Recommended
Reading: The Civil War in the Carolinas (Hardcover). Description: Dan Morrill relates the
experience of two quite different states bound together in the defense of the Confederacy, using letters, diaries, memoirs,
and reports. He shows how the innovative operations of the Union army and navy
along the coast and in the bays and rivers of the Carolinas affected the general course of
the war as well as the daily lives of all Carolinians. He demonstrates the "total war" for North Carolina's vital coastal railroads and ports. In the latter
part of the war, he describes how Sherman's operation cut
out the heart of the last stronghold of the South. Continued below...
The author
offers fascinating sketches of major and minor personalities, including the new president and state governors, Generals Lee,
Beauregard, Pickett, Sherman, D.H. Hill, and Joseph E. Johnston. Rebels and abolitionists, pacifists and unionists, slaves
and freed men and women, all influential, all placed in their context with clear-eyed precision. If he were wielding a needle
instead of a pen, his tapestry would offer us a complete picture of a people at war. Midwest Book Review: The Civil War in the Carolinas by civil war expert and historian
Dan Morrill (History Department, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and Director of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historical
Society) is a dramatically presented and extensively researched survey and analysis of the impact the American Civil War had
upon the states of North Carolina and South Carolina, and the people who called these states their home. A meticulous, scholarly,
and thoroughly engaging examination of the details of history and the sweeping change that the war wrought for everyone, The
Civil War In The Carolinas is a welcome and informative addition to American Civil War Studies reference collections.
Sources: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies; Walter Clark,
Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War 1861-1865; National Park Service: American
Civil War; National Park Service: Soldiers and Sailors System; Weymouth T. Jordan and Louis H. Manarin, North Carolina Troops,
1861-1865; and D. H. Hill, Confederate Military History Of North Carolina: North Carolina In The Civil War, 1861-1865.
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