37th North Carolina Infantry Regiment

Thomas' Legion
Introduction & How to Use this Site
Cherokee Chief William Holland Thomas
Causes and Motives: American Civil War
Organization of Union and Confederate Armies: Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery
American Civil War: Union and Confederate Navies
American Civil War: The Soldier's Life
American Civil War: Casualties, Battles and Battlefields
Civil War's Turning Points
Civil War Casualties, Fatalities & Statistics
Civil War Generals
American Civil War Desertion and Deserters: Union and Confederate
Civil War Prisoner of War Prison Union Confederate Prisons
Aftermath and Reconstruction
Civil War Genealogy and Research Tools
American Civil War Pictures - Photographs
African Americans and American Civil War History
NORTH CAROLINA HISTORY
North Carolina American Civil War Statistics, Battles, History
North Carolina Civil War History and Battles
North Carolina Civil War Regiments and Battles
North Carolina Coast: American Civil War
HISTORY OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA
Western North Carolina and the American Civil War
Western North Carolina Civil War
HISTORY OF THE CHEROKEE INDIANS
Cherokee Indians: American Civil War
History of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian Nation
Cherokee Indian Heritage, History, Culture, Customs, Ceremonies, and Religion
Cherokee War Rituals, Culture, Festivals, Government, and Beliefs
Researching your Cherokee Heritage
Recommended American Indian History
North Carolina: American Civil War Photos
Thomas' Legion Papers, Diaries, and Memoirs
American Civil War Polls
Civil War History
Recommended American Civil War History
Civil War Video Games

37th North Carolina Infantry Regiment
 
37th Infantry Regiment, organized by Colonel C. C. Lee, was assembled at High Point, North Carolina, in November 1861. The men were recruited in the counties of Buncombe, Watauga, Mecklenburg, Wake, Ashe, Alexander, and Gaston. The unit fought at New Bern and then moved to Virginia in the spring of 1862. It was assigned to General Branch's and Lane's Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia. The 37th North Carolina engaged at Hanover Court House and Mechanicsville, and participated in many campaigns of the army from the Seven Days Battles to Cold Harbor. It continued the fight in the Petersburg trenches and around Appomattox. This regiment reported 125 casualties during the Seven Days' Battles, 15 at Cedar Mountain, 81 at Second Manassas, 93 at Fredericksburg, and 235 at Chancellorsville. Of the 379 engaged at Gettysburg, more than thirty percent were disabled. It surrendered 10 officers and 98 men at Appomattox. The field officers were Colonels William M. Barbour and Charles C. Lee; Lieutenant Colonel John B. Ashcraft, Charles N. Hickerson, and William G. Morris; and Majors Jackson L. Bost, Owen N. Brown, John G. Bryan, Rufus M. Rankin, and William R. Rankin. Colonel Charles C. Lee was killed at the Battle of Mechanicsville, Virginia.

Site search Web search

Recommended Reading: The Thirty-seventh North Carolina Troops: Tar Heels in the Army of Northern Virginia (Hardcover), by Michael C. Hardy. Description: It vividly reflects the unit’s four years’ service, focusing on the soldiers’ own words. Drawn from letters, diaries, and postwar articles and interviews, this history of the 37th North Carolina follows the unit from its organization in November 1861 until its surrender at Appomattox. Continued below...
The book includes photographs of the key players in the 37th’s story as well as maps illustrating the unit’s position at several engagements. Appendices include a complete roster of the unit and a listing of individuals buried in large sites such as prison cemeteries. (Great for genealogy, too.) A bibliography and index are also included.
 
Recommended Reading: Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. Description: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz returned from years of traipsing through war zones as a foreign correspondent only to find that his childhood obsession with the Civil War had caught up with him. Near his house in Virginia, he happened to encounter people who reenact the Civil War--men who dress up in period costumes and live as Johnny Rebs and Billy Yanks. Intrigued, he wound up having some odd adventures with the "hardcores," the fellows who try to immerse themselves in the war, hoping to get what they lovingly term a "period rush." Horwitz spent two years reporting on why Americans are still so obsessed with the war, and the ways in which it resonates today. Continued below...
In the course of his work, he made a sobering side trip to cover a "murder that was provoked by the display of the Confederate flag," and he spoke to a number of people seeking to honor their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. Horwitz has a flair for odd details that spark insights, and Confederates in the Attic is a thoughtful and entertaining book that does much to explain America's continuing obsession with the Civil War.
 
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
 

Recommended Viewing: Gone with the Wind (Four-Disc Collector's Edition) 1939 (1941) Description: First off, if you're a GWTW fanatic, you must buy this four-disc collection. But then again, you probably don't need to read this to make that decision. For the rest of us, know that the kitchen-sink approach has been established here with two full discs of extras. Continued below…

The film's restoration under Warner's brilliant Ultra-Resolution process is the major contribution to the set. However, the bare-bones version released years ago isn't bad and the film still doesn't pop off the screen as do films from the headier days of Technicolor (like the earlier Ultra-Resolution DVD release of Meet Me in St. Louis). That said, the set is worthy of the most popular movie ever made. Rudy Behlmer's feature-length commentary is dry but an exhaustive reference guide to the entire history of the film. Need more? There's the excellent full-length documentary The Making of a Legend (1989) narrated by Christopher Plummer, plus two hour-long older biographies on the two main stars. There are many new vignettes on the rest of the cast, all narrated by Plummer (a nice touch to tie everything together). The new 30-minute interview/reminisce with Oliva de Havilland will be interesting to older fans, but tiresome for the younger set. The usual sort of trailers and premiere footage is here along with a curious short ("The Old South," directed by Fred Zinnemann) that was produced to help introduce the world to the history of the South. --Doug Thomas

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; Auburn University Archives & Manuscripts Department.

Letter, William Barber to Lane Requesting
Recommendation for Promotion,
Nov. 1863
 
Camp of 37th N.C.T.
Nov 3rd '63 AD

General

From the intimate relations which have long existed between us, I thought I might approach you without indelicacy on a subject of interest to myself [primarily].  I think you will sustain me in the assertion that I have never once approached you, directly or indirectly on the subject of promotion, while many officers within your knowledge have been crazy on the subject who have not done 1/3 the service I have.  Gen Jordan & some officer friends of mine some time ago told me that they believe I could secure promotion if I would make the effort as they had heard Gen Hill speak of me in very high terms - in one conversation with another friend of mine Gen Hill expressed the opinion that "I was worthy of promotion and that he would like to see me promoted."  Learning this fact, Gen Jordan wrote
[Page 2]
a letter to Gen Hill in my behalf which I sent to Gen Hill a day or two since.  I have heard it stated that Gen Lee (I know not with what truth) has intimated that his divisions & Brigades were too large.  If this be true, it is probable that some more Brigadiers will be made.  I believe, Gen, a private letter from you to Gen Hill would go far to aid me as you know something of my character as a gentleman & officer.  I do not desire an official communication for reasons which you will [       ] appreciate.  Englehard, you are aware, is an arduous advocate of officers & were a communication to go thru that channel, his influence would be against me.  I know that Gen Hill is a friend to me & if he can do anything will gladly do it & a letter from my own Brigadier would be a good reason for him taking action.  This matter I communicate in writing & ask that you consider it personal so that if it fails it may not be a matter of comment
[Page 3]
among others.  If you think proper to write to Gen Hill, I will be obliged to you - But I do not desire you to do any thing against your judgment in this matter.  If you do not think me competent, I do not wish your personal friendship to lead you to recommend me against the dictates of your judgement.  You know that 2 officers here rank me & if you were promoted or killed the probabilities are very strong that one of them would be promoted.  Please consider this matter & act as your judgement dictates.
Your friend
William Barber
--Transcribed by Terri Stout-Stevens of Pffaftown, NC, August 2, 1999.  Edited and Posted by Marty Olliff, Assistant Archivist, Auburn University, who takes full responsibility for any errors
(Also see: Lane's Brigade, General Lane's Account of the Battle of Gettysburg, 37th North Carolina Infantry Regiment, Battle of Hanover Courthouse (Raleigh Standard), and Soldier's Letter from the 37th Regiment).

Site Meter

Try our "Search Engine," this website contains several hundred pages.

 This website is best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer.