Robert A. Best

Age 18, from Wayne County, he enlisted as 3rd Sergeant of Captain Junius Whitaker's Company - the Goldsboro Volunteers - of the 9th North Carolina Volunteers on 15 April 1861. They transferred as Company D to the 4th North Carolina Infantry and mustered for Confederate service on 28 June 1861. He was promoted to 2nd Sergeant on 21 October 1861.

He was captured at Middletown, MD on 15 September 1862 - the day following the regiment's fight at Fox's Gap on South Mountain.

He was a prisoner at Fort Delaware by about 22 September, paroled and sent to Aiken's Landing, VA for exchange on 2 October, and declared exchanged on 10 November 1862. He was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on 16 January 1863, and promoted to First Lieutenant in April, but was killed in action at Chancellorsville, VA on 3 May 1863, and "buried on the field."

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 via fold3 and the Roster.2 His gravesite is on Findagrave; he also had a modern stone placed in Shockoe Hill Cemetery in Richmond, VA.

c. 1843

05/03/1863; Chancellorsville, VA; burial in Confederate Cemetery, Fredericksburg, VA