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25th North Carolina Infantry Regiment
25th Infantry Regiment, formerly the 15th Volunteers, was assembled at Camp Patton, Asheville, North
Carolina, in August 1861. The following counties furnished companies for the regiment: Henderson, Jackson, Haywood, Cherokee,
Transylvania, Macon, Buncombe, and Clay. It relocated to Grahamville, South Carolina, and remained there until March
1862. The unit returned to North Carolina and then arrived in Virginia on June 24. The unit fought at Antietam and, serving in R. Ransom's and M. W. Ranson's Brigade, it fought at
Malvern Hill (during the Seven Days Battles) to Fredericksburg, served in North Carolina, and then saw action at Plymouth and Drewry's Bluff. The 25th participated in the long Siege of Petersburg south of the James River and the Appomattox Campaign. It lost several soldiers in The Crater. It reported 128 casualties during the Seven Days Battles, 15 in the Maryland
Campaign, 88 at Fredericksburg, and 103 at Plymouth. Many were disabled at Sailor's Creek, and on April 9, 1865, only 8 officers and 69 soldiers were present. The field officers were Colonels Thomas L. Clingman
and Henry M. Rutledge; Lieutenant Colonels S. C. Bryson, St. Clair Dearing, and Matthew N. Love; and Majors John W. Francis,
William S. Grady, and William Y. Morgan. Colonel Thomas Lanier Clingman, promoted to Brigadier-General, commanded Clingman's Brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia. He was an ardent lawyer and one of the
most outspoken politicians of his era and his proslavery and states' rights positions climaxed with his quote to Congress:
"Do us justice and we stand with you; attempt to trample on us and we separate!"
| North Carolina Civil War Map |
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| NC Civil War Battlefield Map |
Recommended
Reading: 25th North Carolina Infantry: History and Roster of a Mountain-bred Regiment in the Civil War
(Hardcover). Description: This historical account covers the 25th Regiment North Carolina Infantry Troops
during the Civil War. Farmers and their sons left the mountains to enlist with the regiment, which organized in Asheville
in August 1861, to defend their home territory. Continued below...
In addition to casualty, desertion records, and a complete regimental roster, the book chronicles the unit’s
defensive tactics in the Carolina
coastal regions and battlefield actions at Seven Days, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Plymouth and Petersburg. More than 125
historic photos, illustrations, and detailed maps are featured.
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: Bluecoats and
Tar Heels: Soldiers and Civilians in Reconstruction North Carolina
(New Directions in Southern History) (Hardcover). Description: In Bluecoats and Tar Heels:
Soldiers and Civilians in Reconstruction North Carolina, Mark L. Bradley examines the complex relationship between U.S. Army
soldiers and North Carolina civilians after the Civil War. Continued below...
Postwar violence and political instability led the federal government to deploy elements of the U.S. Army
in the Tar Heel State,
but their twelve-year occupation was marked by uneven success: it proved more adept at conciliating white ex-Confederates
than at protecting the civil and political rights of black Carolinians. Bluecoats and Tar Heels is the first book to focus
on the army’s role as post-bellum conciliator, providing readers the opportunity to discover a rich but neglected chapter
in Reconstruction history.
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 Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy (444
pages) (Louisiana State University Press) (Updated edition: November 2007) Description: The
Life of Johnny Reb does not merely describe the battles and skirmishes fought by the Confederate foot soldier. Rather,
it provides an intimate history of a soldier's daily life--the songs he sang, the foods he ate, the hopes and fears he experienced,
the reasons he fought. Wiley examined countless letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, and official records to construct this
frequently poignant, sometimes humorous account of the life of Johnny Reb. In a new foreword for this updated edition, Civil
War expert James I. Robertson, Jr., explores the exemplary career of Bell Irvin Wiley, who championed the common folk, whom
he saw as ensnared in the great conflict of the 1860s. Continued below...
About Johnny Reb:
"A Civil War classic."--Florida Historical Quarterly
"This book deserves to be on the shelf of every Civil War modeler and enthusiast."--Model
Retailer
"[Wiley] has painted with skill a picture of the life of the Confederate
private. . . . It is a picture that is not only by far the most complete we have ever had but perhaps the best of its kind
we ever shall have."--Saturday Review of Literature
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; D. H. Hill, Confederate Military History Of North Carolina: North Carolina In The Civil War, 1861-1865; Hunter
Library, Western Carolina University.
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