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34th North Carolina
Infantry Regiment
34th Infantry Regiment was assembled at High Point, North Carolina,
in October 1861. Its members were recruited in the counties of Ashe, Rutherford, Rowan, Lincoln,
Cleveland, Mecklenburg, and Montgomery.
After serving in the Department of North Carolina, it relocated to Virginia and was assigned to General Pender's and
Scales' Brigade. The 34th was active in the many campaigns of the army, from the Seven Days Battles to Cold Harbor, participated in the Siege of Petersburg south of the James River,
and the operations around Appomattox. It reported 53 killed and 158 wounded during the Seven Days Battles, 2 killed and 23
wounded at Second Manassas, 2 killed and 17 wounded at Fredericksburg, and 18 killed, 110 wounded, and 20 missing at Chancellorsville. Of the 310 engaged at Gettysburg, twenty-one percent were disabled. It surrendered 21 officers and 145 men. The
field officers were Colonels Collet Leventhorpe, William Lee J. Lowrance, and Richard H. Riddick; Lieutenant Colonels George
T. Gordon, Charles J. Hammerskold, William A. Houck, John L. McDowell, and George M. Norment; and Majors George M. Clark,
Joseph B. McGee, Eli H. Miller, William A. Owens, Martin Shoffner, and Francis L. Twitty.
| North Carolina Confederate Battle Map |
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| North Carolina Confederate Battlefield Map |
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. Continued below...
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
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. 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.
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 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
History Buff's Guide to the Civil War (400 pages). Description:
Exploring the Civil War can be fascinating, but with so many battles, leaders, issues, and more than 50,000 books on these
subjects, the task can also be overwhelming. Was Gettysburg the most important battle? Were Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson
Davis so different from each other? How accurate is re-enacting? Who were the worst commanding generals? Thomas R. Flagel
uses annotated lists organized under more than thirty headings to see through the powder smoke and straighten Sherman’s
neckties, ranking and clarifying the best, the worst, the largest, and the most lethal aspects of the conflict. Continued
below...
Major sections are fashioned around the following topics:
• Antebellum: Investigates the critical years before the war, in particular
the growing crises, extremists, and slavery.
• Politics: Contrasts the respective presidents and constitutions
of the Union and Confederacy, the most prominent politicians, and the most volatile issues of the times.
• Military Life: Offers insights into the world of the common soldiers,
how they fought, what they ate, how they were organized, what they saw, how they lived, and how they died.
• The Home Front: Looks at the fastest growing field in Civil War
research, including immigration, societal changes, hardships and shortages, dissent, and violence far from the firing lines.
• In Retrospect: Ranks the heroes and heroines, greatest victories
and failures, firsts and worsts.
• Pursuing the War: Summarizes Civil War study today, including films,
battlefield sites, books, genealogy, re-enactments, restoration, preservation, and other ventures.
From the antebellum years to Appomattox and beyond, The History Buff’s
Guide to the Civil War is a quick and compelling guide to one of the most complex and critical eras in American history.
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;
Hunter Library, Western Carolina University.
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