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The First Soldier Killed in the Civil War
The
First Confederate Soldier Killed In Battle
Battle of Big Bethel
Southern Historical Society Papers.
Vol. XX. Richmond,
Va., January-December. 1892.
Henry Lawson Wyatt.
Introduction
Who was the first
soldier killed in the Civil War? Was it a Union or Confederate soldier? Today these questions make for good Civil
War trivia than anything else. While at Fort Sumter, the location that sparked the war, not a soul was killed by enemy
fire, but during the Union withdrawal and 100-gun salute to the U.S. flag at Sumter, two Union privates were killed when a
pile of cartridges were detonated by sparks. But the first enlisted soldier killed in combat during the Civil War was
a Confederate soldier at the Battle of Big Bethel, Virginia. Who was the soldier that was killed by enemy fire? What was the
unfortunate soldier's name? How was he killed? The name of the first soldier killed in the conflict was Henry Lawson Wyatt
of the First North Carolina Volunteers. This study discusses the history and details of Wyatt's death as well as the lopsided
Battle of Big Bethel.
| Battle of Big Bethel Map |
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| Civil War Battle of Big Bethel Battlefield Map |
The
First Soldier Killed in the Civil War
It is somewhat remarkable that North Carolina, which was the last State to leave the Union, should have furnished the first soldier to the grim monster who during the
next four long and weary years was to claim such a host of victims. Secession was not popular in North Carolina; the State
was so thoroughly for the Union that in February, 1861, after seven of the States to the South had seceded, and after delegates
from those States had visited North Carolina to induce her to secede, her people refused to call even a convention to consider
the question of secession. It was not until President Lincoln called on North Carolina for her quota of troops to crush the seceding States that her determination changed. It then became
evident that North Carolina must fight for her Southern sisters, or against them. The dispatch in which the Governor answered
the call of President Lincoln voiced the sentiment of the whole people. Governor Ellis telegraphed that the President could get no troops in North Carolina. The die was cast, a convention was called, and on May
20, 1861, the State left the Union. North Carolina was slow in casting the die. But when this was done she entered the Confederacy
with all the elan of Southern character. She was to furnish upwards of one-sixth of the whole number of men in the
Confederate army; forty thousand of her sons, more than twice as many as came from any other State, were to fall on the field
of battle or to die in prison; and her Twenty-six regiment was to suffer on the first day at Gettysburg a loss of eighty-six and three-tenths per cent., the greatest loss sustained by any one regiment on either side during the
war. (*) The resources of North Carolina were such and had been so well husbanded by her Governor, Vance, that as far as she
was concerned the war might have been continued a
(*) These are the figures of Lieutenant-Colonel
Wm. F. Fox, in his Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-'65. Colonel Fox estimates the total forces
of the Confederacy at about six hundred thousand men. The military population of North Carolina, in 1861, was one hundred
and fifteen thousand three hundred and sixty-nine, the vote cast for governor, in 1860, being one hundred and twelve thousand
five hundred and eighty-six. Moore in his Roster of North Carolina troops, puts the total enrollment at one hundred and four
thousand four hundred and ninety-eight, but the enumeration of one regiment and of various companies is missing. In November,
1864, Adjutant-General Gatlin reported one hundred and eight thousand and thirty-two men in the Confederate service. This
did not include nine thousand nine hundred and three junior and senior reserves, nor three thousand nine hundred and sixty-two
home guards and militia officers, nor three thousand one hundred and three troops in unattached companies or in regiments
from other States. The total according to this report footed up one hundred and twenty-five thousand men. Colonel Fox says
that North Carolina lost forty thousand two hundred and seventy-five men killed in battle, by wounds and disease; South Carolina
comes second with seventeen thousand six hundred and eighty, two; Virginia was fourth with fourteen thousand seven hundred
and ninety-four. These figures need no comment.
[The records of the office of the Adjutant-General
of Virginia, unfortunately were despoiled by Federal authorities, upon their occupation of Richmond, April 3, 1865. Virginia,
it should also be remembered was, in different sections occupied at different times by Federal troops during the war. It would
be difficult to arrive at her representation by numbers in the Confederate armies, or her losses on Virginia soil and elsewhere.
She had in the field her strength from lads to feeble old men--ED.]
year longer, and the first soldier
who fell in battle for the Lost Cause was to come from North Carolina.
This
soldier was Henry Lawson Wyatt. He was born in Richmond, Virginia, February 12, 1842. His parents were Isham Belcher and Lucinda
N. L. Wyatt. He was apprenticed to the carpenter trade at an early age, and in October, 1856, accompanied his father to North
Carolina, and ultimately settled in Tarboro, Edgecombe county. Here he followed his trade and by faithful work and upright
deportment made friends in the community. This is the brief narrative of the first nineteen year's of Wyatt's life. From this
time his career is a part of the history of a great struggle.
It became evident
in April, 1861, that North Carolina must secede or fight the Southern States. Private parties, anticipating the action of
the State, were organizing and drilling troops for service. One of the first of these companies was the "Edgecombe Guards"
of Edgecombe county. It was organized April 18, 1861, and on that day Henry Lawson Wyatt enlisted in it as a private soldier.
It consisted of eighty-eight privates, nine non and four commissioned officers. Its captain was John Luther Bridgers, of Edgecombe
County. Its commanding colonel was Daniel Harvey Hill, of Mecklenburg, who became later a lieutenant-general in the
Confederate service. The company became known as A, of what was then the First Regiment of North Carolina Volunteers. This regiment was the first of all the North Carolina troops to organize and take the field. Its term of enlistment
was for six months and it was disbanded in the fall of 1861. After the enlistment of ten regiments of State troops, this became
known as the Bethel regiment from its first battle, and by this name it has passed into history.
| First Confederate Soldier Killed in the Civil War |
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| (North Carolina Native Henry Lawson Wyatt Memorial) |
| First Confederate Killed in the American Civil War |
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| First Confederate Killed in the Civil War |
The battle, from which it took its name, was fought Monday, the tenth of June, 1861, at Bethel, or Big Bethel, or Bethel church, situated on the Yorktown road, nine miles from Hampton, Virginia. It had been
occupied on the night of the 6th of June by the Confederates from Yorktown. These troops consisted of the First North Carolina Regiment, Colonel D. H. Hill commanding [see: 1st North Carolina Infantry Regiment, Battle of Big Bethel,
Report of Colonel D. H. Hill], with Lieutenant-Colonel Charles C. Lee as second in command, and
four pieces of Randolph's battery. Colonel Hill found a branch of Back River in his front andencircling his right flank.
On his left was a dense and almost impenetrable wood except about one hundred and fifty yards of old field. The rear was covered
by the road, a thick wood and a narrow cultivated field. The position had the inherent defect of being commanded by an immense
open field on which the enemy might be readily deployed. Colonel Hill determined to make an enclosed work. The bridge over
the river to his right was commanded by the artillery, an eminence beyond the creek was occupied and a battery put into place.
The work of fortification was kept up during the 7th and 8th and on the 9th, which was Sunday, the men worked and prayed by
turns. They were aroused at three on Monday to advance on the enemy, but finding him too strong fell back on their entrenchments
and awaited his approach. A reinforcement of one hundred and eighty men from the Third Virginia regiment was stationed on
the hill on the extreme right. Company G, First North Carolina, later Bethel regiment, was thrown over to protect the howitzer,
and Company A, First North Carolina, took post in the dense wood beyond and to the left of the road. The Confederates, about
fourteen hundred strong, awaited the enemy in their entrenchments. At 9 A. M. his heavy columns approached rapidly and in
good order.
These troops had been sent out from Hampton by Major-General Butler,
then commanding in the department of Virginia. They were commanded by Brigadier-General E. W. Pierce, and were about thirty-five
hundred strong, consisting of eight hundred and fifty men of the Fifth New York Volunteers, under Colonel Duryea; six hundred
and fifty of the Third New York, under Colonel Townsend; seven hundred and fifty from the Seventh New York, Fourth Massachusetts,
and First Vermont, under Colonel Bendix, of the Seventh New York, with others from the Second New York, under Colonel Carr,
and from the First New York, under Colonel Allen, with a detachment from the Second United States Artillery with several pieces.
The Federals attacked gallantly, but after a fight of two hours and a half were defeated, having lost eighteen killed, fifty-three
wounded and five missing. The Confederates lost one killed and eleven wounded. This death happened towards the close of the
action. A strong column of Federals, consisting of Massachusetts troops, under the leadership of Major Theodore Winthrop,
crossed over the creek, and appeared at the angle on the Confederate left. Here they were opposed by Companies B, C and G,
First North Carolina, and by Captain Bridgers, with Company A, who had been recalled from the swamp where he was first posted,
and had retaken, in splendid fashion, the work from which Captain Brown, of the artillery, had been compelled to withdraw
a disabled gun to prevent its capture. The enemy made a rush, hoping to get within the Confederate lines. They were met by
a cool and deliberate fire, but were concealed in part by a house. Volunteers were called for to burn this house. Corporal
George Williams, Privates Henry L. Wyatt, Thomas Fallon and John H. Thorpe, of Company A, advanced to perform the duty. Their
duty was to charge across an open field, two hundred yards wide, in face of the enemy's lines, and commanded by his sharp-shooters.
They behaved with great gallantry, but had advanced only about thirty yards when Wyatt fell, pierced through the brain by
a musket ball. The other three were wounded, and remained on the earth until a shell from a howitzer fired the house, and
helped to route the enemy. About the same time that Private Wyatt fell on the Confederate side, the gallant Major Winthrop
fell on the other, one of the first officers to fall in the war. He was a native of Connecticut, and his native State has
long since perpetuated his memory.
The conduct of young Wyatt was spoken of
in the highest terms by J. B. Magruder, colonel commanding the Confederate forces, by his own regimental commander, D. H.
Hill, by George W. Randolph, then in charge of the Richmond Howitzers, and afterwards Secretary of War for the Confederacy,
and by all who on that day were witnesses of his gallant but unavailing heroism.
The remains were taken to Richmond and interred in the soldier's section in Hollywood, near where the Confederate monument
now is. A board of pine, inscribed with his name, regiment, time and place of death, was his only monument. In 1887 this had
rotted away and was found face downward. I do not know that the grave has yet been properly marked.
But the State of North Carolina has shown her sense of duty and gratitude to the young hero. The General Assembly, of 1891,
ordered an oil painting (25x30) of Wyatt, to be made at the public expense. The work was executed by Miss Mary A. E. Nixon,
an artist of Raleigh, and now adorns the main reading-room of the State Library. Persons who knew the young soldier in life,
say that the artist has caught the very spirit of his daring and chivalrous soul. It is also proposed to surmount the Confederate
monument in Raleigh, of which the corner-stone was laid in October, 1892, with a statute of Wyatt with an appropriate inscription.
(Related reading below.)
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...
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.
Advance to:
Recommended Reading: Shock Troops
of the Confederacy (Hardcover: 432 pages). Description: Fred Ray's Shock Troops of the Confederacy is primarily focused
on the "sharpshooter battalions" of the Army of Northern Virginia. In a Civil War context, "sharpshooter" was usually more
akin to "skirmisher" than "sniper," although these specialized battalions also used innovative open order assault techniques,
especially late in the war. Continued below...
Ray includes,
however, a detailed study of Union sharpshooter battalions and Confederate sharpshooters in the West. Remarkably, little
has been published about such organizations in the past, so Fred Ray's book offers a unique study of the evolution of Civil
War infantry tactics, revealing a more complex, sophisticated approach to the battlefield than is usually understood.
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 General “Stonewall” Jackson’s wife's sister. 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.
Editor's Choice: 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.
Recommended Reading: The Civil
War Battlefield Guide: The Definitive Guide, Completely Revised, with New Maps and More Than 300 Additional Battles
(Second Edition) (Hardcover). Description: This new
edition of the definitive guide to Civil War battlefields is really a completely new book. While the first edition covered
60 major battlefields, from Fort Sumter to Appomattox, the second covers all of
the 384 designated as the "principal battlefields" in the American Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Report.
As in the first edition, the essays are authoritative and concise, written by such leading Civil War historians as James
M. McPherson, Stephen W. Sears, Edwin C. Bearss, James I. Robinson, Jr., and Gary W. Gallager. Continued below...
The second edition also features 83 new four-color maps covering the most important battles. The Civil War
Battlefield Guide is an essential reference for anyone interested in the Civil War. "Reading
this book allows the reader to envision the heroic Union and Confederate soldiers charging across those smoke filled battlefields
during America's darkest hour..."
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