There is little doubt that Generals Pickett and Hoke intended the mass executions to serve as a reminder to their own troops of the consequences of desertion and hoped that the harshness of the penalties and the firmness with which they were carried out would slow the flood tide of defections from the Confederate army. To drive this point home, they wasted little time in approving a sermon on the deserters' deaths for delivery to Hoke's entire brigade six days after the last execution, while the image of death was still fresh in their minds.

For more than an hour, Reverend Paris passionately extolled the virtues of patriotism and condemned the evils of desertion. Deserters were, according to Paris, no better than Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold. "If in this bloody war our country should be overrun," he argued, it would result largely from soldiers listening to defeatist elements at home. Discontent, he warned, was caused by so-called peace meetings composed of men "who talk more about their 'rights' than their duty and loyalty to their country" and by defeatists who claimed that "we are whipt!"; "it is useless to fight any longer!"; and "this is the rich man's war and the poor man's fight!" Certain newspapers had added to the fire, as did some clergymen preaching from the pulpit. These and letters from so-called friends at home, Paris warned, overcame some soldiers in the ranks, and "the young man of promise and of hope once, now becomes a deserter." Warning of the harsh consequences of a Union victory, Paris appealed to Confederate patriotism:

Shall we then lay down our arms before we are overthrown? God for-
bid! Sons of Carolina, let your battle-cry be Onward! Onward! until
victory shall crown the beautiful banner that floats over us today
with such a peace as freemen only love, and brave men only can
accept. ⁶⁸

Reactions to the mass executions ranged from fear to condemnation to approval. Within the Union-occupied eastern portion of the state, Colonel Edward Ripley reported utter demoralization in the ranks of the North Carolina Union regiments: "Indeed they are already looking to the swamps for the protection they have so far failed of getting from our Government... I believe they will inevitably, in case of a fight, become panic-stricken and have a bad effect on the rest of this slim command." ⁶⁹

In Confederate Kinston, some local residents felt that the offense had not been sufficiently serious to warrant the severity of the punishment. This view resulted from the belief that Confederate authorities had broken their promise to the men of the local-service units that they would not be removed from the general area of their homes. Others expressed satisfaction with the penalties, wishing that such other "traitors" as peace activist William W. Holden had been hanged with them. Leonidas L. Polk, future state commissioner of agriculture and Populist Party leader, wrote that the "criminals" deserved to die, regretting only that he had had to watch. ⁷⁰ Most Confederate and many Union soldiers felt that the traitors got their just desserts. One Northern soldier from the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Infantry blamed the Federal government for allowing deserters from the enemy to serve against their former comrades. ⁷¹

Official reaction to the deaths of the North Carolina Union soldiers was slow in coming from Federal military authorities. Maj. Gen. Peck, commander of the District of North Carolina, learned of the Kinston incident indirectly through correspondence involving the reported execution of a Negro Union soldier by Confederates during the New Bern campaign. He immediately corresponded with Pickett, his Confederate counterpart, at his Petersburg, Virginia, headquarters. Enclosed in Peck's letter was an order from President Lincoln mandating retaliation in such situations. "It is ordered," wrote the president, "that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed." Peck informed Pickett that he intended to carry out the president's order unless the Southern general promised to bring the offenders to justice. ⁷²

Two days later, Peck learned for the first time that soldiers of the Second North Carolina Union Volunteers had been taken prisoner during the Confederate attack on New Bern. He quickly penned a second letter informing Pickett that in his "hasty retreat" from New Bern, he had taken prisoner fifty-three "loyal and true North Carolinians" in the service of the Union army. The names of these men were provided to ensure that they would be treated equally with other prisoners of war. ⁷³

Peck was unaware that seven men had already been hanged by the time he wrote the letter, and by the time it arrived in Pickett's headquarters thirteen more would be dead, with the final two awaiting execution. The slowness of the mail, which traveled by flag of truce boats and required an eight-to nine-day turnaround time, worked against any hopes of intervention. Peck's two letters, containing his threat of retaliation as well as what to Pickett would have been an irksome reference to the latter's "hasty retreat," placed additional roadblocks in the way of leniency toward the North Carolina Unionists. The Southern general gave his reply in two letters dated February 16 and 17. In regard to Union retaliation should the prisoners be executed, "I have merely to say that I have in my hands ... some 450 officers and men of the United States army, and for every man you hang, I will hang ten of the United States army." Pickett then sarcastically thanked Peck for the list of the fifty-three men "which you so kindly furnished," since this would enable him to bring to justice any that had not yet been identified among the prisoners as Confederate deserters. Pickett then provided his Union counterpart with a list of twenty-two soldiers of the Second North Carolina Volunteers who had been tried, convicted, and executed for desertion from the Confederate army. The list erred in that, as of that date, Kellum and Hill were still alive. They would be hanged about the time Peck received the letter. ⁷⁴

With the deaths of the twenty-two prisoners, any further correspondence was pointless and served only to aggravate the situation. On February 20 Peck learned of the first executions from an article in the Fayetteville Observer. After informing his superiors of the situation, he wrote Pickett that he was holding two colonels, two lieutenant colonels, two majors, and two captains hostage in Fort Monroe for the safety of the remaining North Carolina captives. Pickett took the threat seriously and prepared for retaliatory executions should Peck carry out his threat. After informing his own superiors of the exchange of correspondence and the charges being made, Pickett requested that "the whole of the prisoners captured in this department be held at my disposal" in case the need arose for tit-for-tat executions. ⁷⁵ The next day, he wrote Peck renewing his claim that the executed men were deserters from the Confederate army who had been "taken in arms against their colors." If, he added, the eight Confederate officers held hostage in Fort Monroe could be proven to have deserted from the Union army, Peck would be justified in their execution. "Otherwise, should you retaliate, you will simply be guilty of murder." Pickett repeated that his own threat of retaliation was still in effect. ⁷⁶

Frustrated at the stalemate and angered over the hanging of so many of his men, Peck concluded his correspondence with Pickett with a threat of retribution along with his side of the argument over the loyalty of the deceased captives from Beech Grove. "These men," he informed Pickett, "were ever loyal to the United States, and opposed secession" until forced into the service by the Confederacy's "merciless conscription." This might have "compelled the suspense of their true sentiments, but was powerless to destroy their love for the federal Union.... With tens of thousands.... they seized the first opportunity to rush within my lines, and resume their former allegiance.... In view of their unswerving and unflagging loyalty, I cannot doubt that the government will take immediate steps to redress these outrages upon humanity." With this prediction of prosecution, Peck informed Pickett that "my duty has been performed, and the blood of these unfortunates will rest upon you and your associates." ⁷⁷

Peck had no intention of letting the matter drop. Copies of his correspondence with General Pickett were forwarded to Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, commander of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina in Fort Monroe, for further action. Butler fully accepted Peck's arguments and forwarded the correspondence to General Ulysses S. Grant with the suggestion that he contact Confederate authorities. Then, "upon their answer, such action may be taken as will sustain the dignity of the government, and give a promise to afford protection to its citizens." ⁷⁸

Grant disagreed with Butler's argument, as he had indicated in an earlier letter to Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston regarding Confederate deserters who had joined the Union army. "Of course," Grant had written, "I would claim no right to retaliate for the punishment of deserters who had actually been mustered into the Confederate Army and afterwards deserted and joined ours." He did not agree, however, to punishment for Union soldiers who had been conscripted but deserted before being sworn into the Confederate army. ⁷⁹ Although Elijah Kellum fell into that category, this exception would never be seriously pursued by Union authorities.

In addition to disagreeing with Butler about Confederate deserters, Grant was not inclined to prosecute Southern officers, many of whom he knew personally, for actions carried out under wartime conditions. This appears to have been particularly true in the case of Pickett, a former West Point associate with whom he had maintained a long friendship that would survive the war. ⁸⁰ Following the war, Pickett learned that his friendship with General Grant notwithstanding he was among those excluded from pardon by President Andrew Johnson's proclamation of May 29, 1865. In an effort to remain peacefully at home with his family, he requested an exception in his case and signed an oath of allegiance. These were blocked, however, by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton who informed Johnston that Pickett was under investigation for the "unlawful hanging of ... citizens of North Carolina." ⁸¹

Pickett became greatly concerned when nothing came of his pardon application. Former Confederate president Davis had been sent to Fort Monroe in irons, a Federal grand jury was considering indictments of Lee and others in Norfolk, and President Andrew Johnson appeared determined to punish Southern leaders. ⁸² As a result, the Pickett family reluctantly agreed to go secretly into exile in Montreal, Canada, where they resided for a time under the alias of Edwards. ⁸³ During his exile, he continued to campaign for assurances of safety from prosecution should he return home. Friends in the Union army, relatives, and Pickett himself wrote repeatedly to General Grant to intercede in his behalf with the president. ⁸⁴

Pickett had good reason to fear returning home. His role in ordering the execution of the twenty-two Second North Carolina Union Volunteer captives had created bitter enemies, particularly among their former officers and comrades in North Carolina. The apparent leader of the drive to bring Pickett to trial for war crimes was Captain W. H. Doherty, assistant quartermaster in New Bern. On September 13, 1865, he wrote the first of a series of requests to superiors in the army and government to bring to justice former Confederate generals Pickett and Hoke, "Wicked and cruel men who have deliberately murdered ... soldiers of the United States, when prisoners." ⁸⁵ As a result, Secretary of War Stanton instructed Maj. Gen. Thomas H. Ruger, Peck's successor as commander of the Department of North Carolina, to appoint a board of inquiry to investigate. Doherty, the initiator of the investigation, was placed in charge of the three-officer board.

Between September 13 and November 14, 1865, the board held hearings in New Bern and Kinston in an effort to determine the identity of all those responsible for the alleged murders. Twenty-eight witnesses were called, including widows of the deceased, former Confederate and Union soldiers, local officials, and citizens of the area who witnessed the hangings. Perhaps the most damning testimony came from Confederate colonel John H. Nethercutt, under whom thirteen of the deceased had served. From him the board concluded that a number of the executed men had served in the local defense service rather than in the regular Confederate army. They could not, therefore, be guilty of desertion, the crime for which they had been tried and hanged. ⁸⁶

On November 18, 1865, the board issued its final report. Responsibility for the executions, it concluded, lay with the following individuals: General Pickett, who ordered the executions; General Hoke, who was in charge of the hangings; the unidentified members of the court-martial board, who sentenced the men; a Colonel Baker, who had "robbed and persecuted their widows"; and the two voluntary hangmen, Blunt King and the unknown executioner with the "cross or squint eye." Because these men were "guilty of crimes too heinous to be excused by the United States government, . . . there should be a military commission immediately appointed for [their] trial ... to inflict upon [them] their just punishment." ⁸⁷

When the report reached Washington, Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, head of the Bureau of Military Justice in Washington, criticized the board of inquiry for misinterpreting the testimony of witnesses and for gathering insufficient evidence upon which action could be taken. According to Holt, the investigators had "misapprehended" Nethercutt's testimony regarding the status of the deceased men. "On the contrary," he ruled, "the little evidence [produced] on that point ...tends to show that they were," in fact, deserters. He further criticized the board of inquiry for not questioning a sufficient number of witnesses on this point:

It is the opinion of this office ... [that although] the blood of these
murdered men should cry in vain from their dishonored graves for
vengeance, it finds in the evidence submitted to it no grounds upon
which personal charges could be established and sustained against the
guilty parties. ⁸⁸

Holt forwarded the report to Secretary of War Stanton with the recommendation that the papers in the case be returned to the commanding general of the Department of North Carolina for further investigations. If a new board should find sufficient evidence, a military commission should then be appointed for the trial of the guilty parties.

Shortly after reopening the case for further evidence Holt found what he believed to be the "smoking gun" necessary to convict Pickett of the Kinston hangings. Holt informed Stanton that the former Southern general's letters of February 16 and 17, 1864, in which he curtly informed Union general Peck of the executions of the North Carolinians supplied evidence that was not available to the first board of inquiry. "Not only does the imperious and vaunting temper in which these letters ... indicate his readiness to commit ... any ... atrocity, but his boastful admissions that he was in command at the time that the twenty-two men had been executed ... all tend to show that he was in responsible command and furnish [the] evidence upon which it is believed charges can be sustained against him." ⁸⁹

Pickett's letters, Holt informed Stanton, should be sent to North Carolina to be included with any further evidence the "investigation now in progress" might turn up. As a preliminary step to a trial, Holt suggested that the former Confederate general should be arrested immediately and held for trial with any other guilty persons the new investigation might find evidence against. ⁹⁰ Pickett, meanwhile, remained in hiding in Montreal, beyond the reach of Union authorities and safe from arrest.

The new board of inquiry was convened in Raleigh on January 23, 1866, under orders to find evidence bearing upon the circumstances of the "murders" and to identify those who could be held accountable. Hearings were conducted in Salisbury, Goldsboro, Kinston, New Bern, Halifax, Beaufort, and other localities. The investigators found it difficult, however, to obtain additional evidence. "Great distaste was quite generally exhibited by the witnesses to testify," they reported, "lest they might be considered by their friends in the light of informers." "Defective memories" seemed to be particularly prevalent. ⁹¹

The second board of inquiry was nevertheless thorough in its search. Witnesses included former governor Zebulon Vance, ex-provisional governor William W. Holden, members of the state legislature, state supreme court judge William H. Battle, the secretary of state, and whoever they thought might possess pertinent information. The records of the state adjutant general's office were searched, muster rolls of the units to which the deceased men were said to have belonged were examined, and an attempt was made to locate records of the court-martial that had sentenced the men in question. Nothing, however, was found to implicate anyone other than General Pickett. Correspondence with the custodian of Confederate archives in Washington proved equally fruitless.

The only evidence found tended to bear out Pickett's contention that all the men captured and executed as a result of the New Bern expedition had previously enlisted in the Confederate army for either general or local service and were under the command of Confederate officers prior to enlistment in the United States Army. Consequently, men in those categories could legitimately be charged with desertion from Confederate service.

The board issued its conclusions on March 29, 1866, in Raleigh. While acknowledging the Confederacy's right to execute deserters in certain circumstances, it denied the right under other circumstances. In the board's opinion, men from Nethercutt's local-service battalion, members of bridge guard companies, and North Carolinians who fled to Union lines either before or after conscription could not be charged with desertion. In these cases, it was in agreement with the judge advocate general who argued that service in the Confederate military was itself a crime from which it was a person's duty to escape at the first opportunity. Having so fled and taken refuge in the United States service, the individuals in question were entitled to that country's protection and to its vengeance "for their shameful death." ⁹²

Regardless of this interpretation, the board regretfully reported on its inability, "after diligent search," to fix responsibility on anyone other than General Pickett. The evidence showed that his was the "prominent authority under whose direction everything connected with the murder of our soldiers took place." It did not contain sufficient grounds to sustain charges against any other individuals. ⁹³

While the board of inquiry was investigating his case in North Carolina, General Pickett appealed to his friend General Grant to intercede in his behalf with President Johnson. In a letter dated March 12, 1866, and post-marked Washington DC, a repentant Pickett stated his case. Noting that the president had not acted upon his application for pardon and that "certain evil disposed persons are attempting to re-open the troubles of the past," he asked "if the time has not arrived for the Executive clemency to be extended in my case, ... I merely wish some assurance, that I will not be disturbed in my endeavor to keep my family from Starvation, and that my parole ... may protect me from the assaults of those persons desirous of still keeping up the War which has ended in my humble opinion forever." ⁹⁴

In response to Pickett's request, a parole was granted the same day. He was, according to the Union commander, "exempt from arrest by Military Authorities except [as] directed by the President of the United States, Secretary of War, or from these Hd. Qrs. so long as he observes the conditions of his parole." ⁹⁵ Pickett was further exempted from the prohibition against travel and was given permission to travel about the United States.

Upon receipt of Pickett's request for clemency, General Grant forwarded it to the president with his recommendation for approval written on the reverse side. Adding that "Gn. Pickett I know personally to be an honorable man," Grant asked assurances that the former Southern general would not be subject to a trial for offenses that, although harsh, were believed necessary if the Confederacy were to maintain its manpower. A trial, Grant argued, would only open up the question whether or not the government meant to keep the "contract entered into to secure the surrender of an armed enemy." ⁹⁶

The investigation appeared to be at a dead end. A House of Representatives resolution of April 16, 1866, requested information on the status of the case. Two days later, General Ruger reported from Raleigh that the investigation in North Carolina was still being delayed "owing to the difficulty of obtaining evidence of persons having knowledge of the facts." ⁹⁷ Three months later, in July, Judge Advocate Holt recommended to the secretary of war that Pickett be arrested and put on trial before a military commission. On July 23, 1866, the House of Representatives passed another resolution requesting from President Johnson information relating to any application for pardon by Pickett as well as whether any further steps had been taken to bring him to justice since the adjournment of the board of inquiry in June 1866. ⁹⁸

President Johnson waited until December 11, 1866, to reply to the House of Representatives' resolution requesting information about Pickett's pardon and possible trial. Rather than providing direct responses to their inquiry, his answer to Congress came in the form of opinions given to him by the secretary of war, the attorney general, and the commander of the army. He left it up to the representatives of the lower house to read several documents: Pickett's letter arguing his case for clemency; a letter from Attorney General Henry Stanbery stating that no proceedings had been instituted against Pickett for "any offenses against the laws of war"; and a communication from Stanton that the expected decision of the Supreme Court in Ex parte Milligan, which dealt with the trial of individuals by military commission, made him hesitate to make a decision in the case. ⁹⁹

The Kinston incident was brought up in Congress again on July 18, 1867, when Grant appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, which was considering the impeachment of President Johnson. In response to his role in Pickett's application for a pardon, an irritated Grant testily replied, "You have no right to ask what my opinion is now." ¹⁰⁰

The case thus came to an inconclusive ending, with all sides apparently choosing to let the matter drop. In 1868, Ulysses S. Grant, having recently been elected president of the United States, was in a position to offer his Southern friend the office of marshal of the state of Virginia. Pickett declined the office and settled down to a life of relative obscurity in Richmond, Virginia. There he engaged in the insurance business until his death in Norfolk in 1875. His stature as a hero of the Confederacy had diminished to the extent that the story of his funeral was postponed for two days by the Richmond Dispatch in order to give full coverage to the unveiling of a statue of General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. ¹⁰¹

The hanging of the men of Company F, Second North Carolina Union Infantry, was not easily forgotten. Several publications in both the North and South served as a reminder. The Deserter's Daughter, a novella written by Private William D. Herrington of the Third North Carolina (Confederate) Cavalry, appeared in 1864, shortly after the Kinston hangings. There is little doubt that it was based on the hanging of the men of the Second North Carolina Union Regiment. ¹⁰² Its popularity was such that a second printing in 1865 sold all but a few hundred copies. Less popular was the publication of Reverend John Paris's sermon on desertion to the assembled men of Hoke's Brigade. This was published in 1864 in Greensboro, North Carolina, in an effort to stem the desertion problem.

In 1886, Colonel James W. Savage, formerly of the Twelfth New York Cavalry, reminisced about the Unionists of North Carolina in a speech to an Omaha, Nebraska, audience. His speech and pamphlet-length publication The Loyal Element of North Carolina during the War presented one of the best descriptions in print of the capture of the North Carolinians at Beech Grove. A final work, published in 1897 but written in 1868, served as an attempt to keep the issue alive. Colonel Rush C. Hawkins, its author, had encouraged loyal North Carolinians to serve in the army and felt a sense of personal responsibility for the deaths of the men in Kinston. After the war he remained bitter against the Confederacy, Pickett, Hoke, and all involved in the deaths of the twenty-two men. The book expressed his contempt of Grant for his refusal to take part in bringing Pickett and Hoke to trial for war crimes. ¹⁰³ With Hawkins's death and the confinement of these publications to the dusty shelves of rare book rooms and archives, the controversy surrounding the deaths of the men of Company F, Second North Carolina Union Volunteer Infantry, passed into the obscurity of history.

The question of guilt for the deaths of the twenty-two victims was never resolved. Did it lie with Pickett for ordering the executions or with the executed men themselves who unquestionably deserted one army for service in another or with Union military officials who failed to protect the men from Confederate vengeance? The most reasonable answer is that none were free of guilt, and all shared in the responsibility for their deaths.

Recent scholarship has suggested that Pickett used the Kinston deserters as scapegoats for "feelings of bitterness and ... [a] sense of failure" that had been building within him since the Battle of Gettysburg. ¹⁰⁴ Yet the facts in the Kinston incident can be given a different interpretation, one in which Pickett acted in keeping with the stated views of Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders that only significant and harsh punishment would stop the desertions then depleting Southern armies. The number of executions may be seen as an effort to set an example to deter further desertions and the swiftness in carrying out the order as an attempt to prevent President Davis from defeating the purpose with pardons and postponements. Pickett expressed his intention of using the executions to set an example immediately after the confrontation with Haskett and Jones in the camp on Dover road. The deserters were accorded military trials and executed according to standard military procedures. Chaplain Paris's sermon on desertion to the assembled troops lends further emphasis to the military nature of Pickett's reasoning. Other than the extreme nature of the example he set there is little reason to fault his actions in the affair.

The deserters themselves must bear some of the responsibility for their own executions. The circumstances surrounding their service in both armies lead to the conclusion that most felt loyalty to neither Union nor Confederacy. Their efforts to find safety in a war that was on their doorsteps led to relatively "safe" service in local-service units first for the South and, when this was threatened, in similar units for the North. As soldiers, they knew the consequences of their actions and met a fate that they understood.

Pickett's extreme action failed to stem the tide of desertion from the Confederate armies, even in Pickett's own division. By November of that year, one hundred men of Pickett's Division were in the guardhouse for desertion, and indications are that the majority of deserters were never apprehended. Pickett complained bitterly "that every man sentenced to be shot for desertion in his division for the past two months has been reprieved" by President Davis. Ultimately, the highest Confederate political authority proved to lack the stomach for the kind of wholesale executions that Pickett--and Lee--thought necessary to halt the exodus. ¹⁰⁵

In the end, the command problem that Pickett faced remained insoluble. The maintenance of an army of citizen-soldiers within a democratic society must of necessity rest to a large degree on the willingness of the great mass of the common people of that society to pay the price and support the cause--voluntarily. By use of a careful mix of inspiration--be it love of country, commander, or comrades--with the iron fist of military discipline the commander can at best hope to prolong somewhat the survival of the army that is his only bid for victory. The doing so is as much an art as any aspect of his task.

Footnotes:

68. Paris, A Sermon, 8-11.
69. "Charles Henry Foster and the Unionists of Eastern North Carolina," Nortb Carolina Historical Review 37, no. 3 (July 1960): 364-65.
70. Polk to "My Dear Sallie."
71. Denny, Wearing the Blue, 251.
72. OR 33.866-67.
73. OR 33.867.
74. OR 33:867-68.
75. Murder of Union Soldiers, 9.
76. OR 33:869-70
77. Murder of Union Soldiers, 6-7.
78. Murder of Union Soldiers, 2-3.
79. Current, Lincoln's Loyalists, 121.
80. Longacre, Leader of the Charge, 20.
81. Hawkins, Assassination of Loyal Citizens, 34, 36.
82. Brooks D. Simpson, Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 106-7.
83. Longacre, Leader of the Charge, 173-74.
84. PG 16:121, 17:221.
85. "The Case of G. E. Pickett," New York Times, December 12, 1866; Hawkins, Assassination of Loyal Citizens, 49-50. W. H. Doherty was a politically ambitious Northern educator. After five years as a senior professor at Antioch College in Ohio, he moved to North Carolina to assume the presidency of Graham College. When the war began, Doherty was serving as the principal of New Bern Academy. On April 12, 1862, he applied, apparently unsuccessfully, to President Lincoln for a position as judge of the United States District Court in North Carolina. Afterward, Doherty was made captain in the quartermaster corps in New Bern. No special reason is known for his intense interest in seeing Pickett prosecuted for war crimes. Memorial and Petition of W. H. Doherty for a judgeship in North Carolina, New Bern Occupation Papers, Collection No. 1993, Southern Historical Collection of the Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
86. Murder of Union Soldiers, 16, 48.
87. Murder of Union Soldiers, 15-17.
88. Murder of Union Soldiers, 47-49.
89. Murder of Union Soldiers, 53.
90. Murder of Union Soldiers, 53-54.
91. Murder of Union Soldiers, 55, 59-60.
92. Murder of Union Soldiers, 58-59.
93. Murder of Union Soldiers, 59.
94. PG 16:121-22.
95. PG 16:121-22.
96. PG 16:121-22.
97. Murder of Union Soldiers, 52.
98. New York Times, December 12, 1866; Congressional Globe, 39th Cong., 1st sess., 1866, 4047.
99. New York Times, December l2, 1866; James D. Richardson, comp., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-,1897, 10 vols. (Washington DC, 1897), vol. 6, 459-60.
100. PG 17:221.
101. Richmond Dispatch, October 26, 1875.
102. William D. Herrington, The Captain's Bride: A Tale of the War; and The Deserter's Daughter, ed. W. Keats Sparrow (Raleigh: Division of Archives and History, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 1990), 11-12.
103. Hawkins, Assassination of Loyal Citizens, 45.
104. Longacre, Leader of the Charge, 140-41; Gordon, "Assumed a Darker Hue," 50.
105. OR 42, pt. 3, 1213.

Many thanks to Dr. Collins for this fine, informative article. Dr. Collins is currently working on two book-length histories of the First and Second North Carolina Union Regiments.

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