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H.A. Brown
(1837 - 1917)
Home State: North Carolina
Education: US Naval Academy
Command Billet: Commanding Regiment
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
From a successful plantation family, he was a student in the class of 1858 at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, but did not graduate.1
At the outbreak of War, in June 1861, he was appointed 1st Lieutenent, Company B, of the 1st Regiment, North Carolina State Troops, and briefly served the Governor in recruiting and drilling troops in North Carolina. After Mechanicsville (26 June 1862), as senior surviving officer, he was in command of the Regiment.1 By the Maryland Campaign he had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, remaining in command.2
On the Campaign
He commanded the regiment in Maryland.
The rest of the War
He commanded the 1st North Carolina in combat, being promoted Colonel in December 1863, until the Regiment was essentially destroyed in action at Spottsylvania Courthouse (12 May 1864).1 He was then in command of the sharpshooters of Rodes' Division3, leading them until he was captured at Ft. Stedman, Virginia on 25 March 1865. He was imprisoned at Johnson's Island (Ohio) and Fort Delaware, before being released after taking the oath on 24 June 1865.1
After the War
After the War he returned to North Carolina and planting. He moved to Columbia, Tennessee in about 1871, where he "increased his holdings and became a planter of modest means".1
References & notes
The photograph above is part of one from Clark,4 and was scanned and posted online by Fred Ray. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
Birth
09/25/1837; Wilkes County, NC
Death
04/09/1917; in NC; burial in St. Paul's Episcopal Church Cemetery, Wilkesboro, NC
1 From the introductory material in the online finding aid to the Brown family papers: Hamilton Brown Papers, 1752-1907, Collection Number 1090, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Southern Historical Collection, Published c. 2004, first accessed 01 January 2005, <http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/shc/index.html>, Source page: /mss/inv/htm/01090.html [AotW citation 527]
2 US War Department, The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (OR), 128 vols., Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1880-1901, various cites [AotW citation 528]
3 From additional material to accompany the book.
Ray, Fred L., Shock Troops of the Confederacy: The Sharpshooter Battalions of the Army of Northern Virginia, Asheville (NC): CFS Press, 2006 [AotW citation 529]
4 Clark, Walter, editor, Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War, 1861-1865, 5 vols., Raleigh and Goldsboro (NC): E. M. Uzzell, Nash Brothers, printers, 1901 [AotW citation 530]