Civil War | 8 N. C. Families

The first Confederate Army conscription in April of 1862 called up men ages 18-35. Smith and his identical twin, Silas Washington Alexander were age 36. While Smith remained in the local militia, “Wash” and their two youngest brothers enlisted in Company B, 13th N. C. Infantry Regiment.

Oswald and Ulysses Columbus Alexander, as well as some of their cousins, served as musicians in the company. The custom was for a band of mostly brass instruments and drums to play during battle, to encourage the troops. The Alexanders lived in Mecklenburg County, in the Sharon church community, which had a band that performed for special occasions. The brothers were, most likely, members of that band.

Washington Alexander was elected to be a Second Lieutenant for Company B. His company fought in a long list of battles, and Washington was wounded at Williamsburg in May of 1862. Later that year, when the company was reduced by the high number of casualties, Wash would find himself the leading officer of the company.

The second conscription later in 1862 called on older men to serve. Smith left the Home Guard in March 1863, for Company F of the 5th Regiment of North Carolina Cavalry, also called the 63rd Regiment of N. C. Troops. His brothers James Wallace, age 38, and William Newton, 35, enlisted in the same company, and they served together on horseback.

Gettysburg

Company F served in battles that included the famous Battle of Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863, as part of the Army of Northern Virginia, under General Robert E. Lee. The cavalry’s duty during the battle was mainly in security and communications.

At Gettysburg, the Confederates, numbering about 75,000, fought against the Army of the Potomac, about 85,000 soldiers. It was a decisive and bloody battle in which the Confederates were turned back and retreated toward the flooded Potomac River. Company F, as part of Robertson’s Brigade, protected the flanks of the army as they crossed the river. Confederate casualties were huge, with almost 4,000 killed and well over 18.000 wounded. Union casualties were of similar numbers.

About one month later, on August 3, 1863, James Wallace Alexander died in Charlottesville, Virginia of typhoid fever. As many as 80% of soldiers’ deaths during the war were from sickness rather than wounds, as they lived outdoors in all weathers, used water from streams they themselves contaminated, and were constantly exposed to contagious diseases.

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Smith’s name was listed on a hospital register in Richmond in September of 1863, apparently with a gunshot wound. William was wounded in June 1864, hospitalized in Charlotte with typhoid the following November, and returned to duty in January 1865.

Washington resigned his commission as an officer in September of 1862, citing the fact that he was left as the leading officer of Company B, and that he was too ill to fulfill his duties. Columbus was taken prisoner in the final battle of the war at Appomattox Court House in April 1865, and he later died of disease as a prisoner of war. Oswald survived the war and returned home, along with Smith and William. They had lost two brothers, several cousins and friends and suffered injuries that would affect them the rest of their lives.

On a lighter note:

Cousin Ham the Bad A**: “Get this horse off me or I’ll shoot you.”

Decades after the war, an old soldier named Paul B. Means, a former Colonel in Company F, wrote a story about a private in his company called “Ham,” (Hamilton) Alexander. Ham and his brother, Sydenham, were cousins a few times removed from Smith and his brothers. Ham was involved in heavy action during the Bristoe Campaign, around October 11, 1863. He turned his horse around too quickly and the horse fell, trapping him underneath. The resourceful Ham aimed his rifle at a dismounted Yankee, took him prisoner, and then made his prisoner get the horse off him.⁷

True story? You decide.

Sources:

1. Confederate Muster Rolls in the files of the N. C. State Dept. of Archives and History, Raleigh, N. C.

2. Stephen E. Bradley, North Carolina Confederate Militia Officers Roster: As Contained in the Adjunct General’s Officers Roster, (Wilmington, N. C.: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1992), p. 233; Bradley, North Carolina Confederate Home Guard Examinations 1863-1864, (Keysville, Va.: the author, 1993) pp i, ii.

3. Louis H. Manarin, North Carolina Troops: 1861-1865 A Roster, Vol. 2–Cavalry, (Raleigh: N. C. State Dept. of Archives and History, 1968), pp. 367-414.; Janet B. Hewett, The Roster of Confederate Soldiers 1861-1865, Vol. I (Wilmington, NC, 1995), p. 92.; Confederate Muster Rolls in the files of the N. C. State Dept of Archives and History, Raleigh, N. C.

4. “Gettysburg,” https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/gettysburg, The American Battlefield Trust, accessed 5 Aug. 2025.

5. Walter Clark, editor, Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War 1861-65, 5 volumes, (Goldsboro, N. C.: published by the State of North Carolina, 1901,) p.577.

Stonewall Jackson

Smith’s children passed down several stories about his experiences in the Civil War. One story was that he was a “private courier” for Stonewall Jackson.¹

Smith was an officer in the local militia company in the Sharon Church community of Mecklenburg County, N. C., and was therefore not eligible for the first Confederate army draft. Key members of the militia were kept as a “Home Guard” for the protection of the community. When Smith later enlisted, in March of 1863², General Jackson was only one month from his death by gunshot from his own soldiers, and Smith’s regiment didn’t serve under him. However, Jackson’s wife, Anna, was the daughter of Rev. Robert Hall Morrison, a prominent Presbyterian minister in Mecklenburg County and first president of Davidson College.³ Perhaps the courier duty that Smith served was to carry private messages between the general and Mrs. Jackson’s family.

His children said that he had a bad knee from a gunshot wound. His war records reveal that he spent some time in Winder hospital in Richmond, in September of 1863.⁴

Freemasons Help Each Other Survive the War

I heard two versions of the most interesting story about Smith’s military service:

The first account supposedly happened either to Smith or one of his brothers. He was circling a large oak tree, with a single Yankee soldier on the opposite side. When either of them got a chance, he fired at the other, taking cover behind the tree. The Confederate took a hit on the hand, which resulted in the loss of a thumb. Though he must have been in pain and shock, he kept fighting. Probably at this point the battle became, not an effort to kill the enemy, but an effort to survive. As time passed and neither gained the advantage, one of them called out, “If we keep on like this, both of us are going to die. What if I walk off one way and you go off in the other, and we both live?” And so they did.

Smith was not missing a thumb in his later years, so this either was not true or it happened to someone else.

The second version, (and possibly a separate incident) is that Smith, who had a reputation for being able to “thread a needle” with a .36 caliber pistol, gained the advantage over the Union soldier, though both were wounded. The Yankee was on the ground under the muzzle of Smith’s gun. When he was about to fire, the man made a secret sign that revealed he was a Freemason. The bond between Freemasons must have been stronger than the enmity between Confederate and Union soldiers, because Smith helped the man to his feet and let him go. The Yankee walked North and Smith walked South, and they never saw each other again.⁵

Civil War literature contains a number of similar stories about Freemasons. Soldiers on opposite sides sometimes treated one another with respect on account of their bond as Masons. Men who joined a Freemasons lodge took a pledge never to harm a fellow Mason. A Mason “sign of distress” is spoken of in some stories, and many men wore their Freemason pin on their uniforms.⁶

Sources:

1. Interviews with Henry Alexander and Lewis Alexander, grandsons of Smith Alexander, based on their conversations with Oswald, Belle, and Lelia Alexander, by the author in 2001.

2. Stephen E. Bradley, North Carolina Confederate Militia Officers Roster: As Contained in the Adjunct General’s Officers Roster, (Wilmington NC: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1992), p. 233; Bradley, North Carolina Confederate Home Guard Examinations 1863-1864, (Keysville, VA: the author, 1993) pp i, ii.; Confederate Muster Rolls in the files of the N.C. State Dept of Archives and History, Raleigh, N.C.

4. Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of North Carolina, NARA Publication No. M270, images online at https://www.fold3.com/image/35359367.

5. Henry and Lewis Alexander, cited above.

6. Justin Lowe, “Freemasonry and The Civil War: A House Undivided,” n. d., (12 December 2005); Poe, Clarence, editor, True Tales of the South at War: How Soldiers Fought and Families Lived, 1861-1865, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1961) p. 8.

8 N. C. Families

N. C. Family History

Tag Archives: Civil War

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