Joseph Davis

In 1860 he was a 41 year old farmer in the Black Creek District, Wilson County, NC. On 9 October 1861, giving his age as 34, he enlisted as a Private in Company F of the 4th North Carolina Infantry at Camp Pickens, Manassas, VA. He wrote his wife from Manassas about a month after enlisting:

I am again bless with an opportunity of droping you a few lines to inform you that I am up about but not well, I have just taken the mumps ...

There has been some talk of our regiment getting furlows to go home sometime this winter to see our folks, and I hope we will get the chance to go, for I want to see you the worst in the world, but I cant tell when we shall get this chance, for our men away before us, about 25 miles to the yankees are fighting today hard down, we can hear the guns verry plain but I don't think we shall be in anny fight this winter unless the yankees comes on us, for we have to stay here and guard the junction ...

I can say to you I have not got no money yet & shant get none, I don't reckon under a month or two yet, for they keep about two months behind in paying us up, and forage is mostly beef and flour, Once in a while a little bacon, but it is not good like you wimmen can cook & fix up, but we have to make out with it the best we can ...

He was captured in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was paroled at Sharpsburg on 27 September 1862. By 12 March 1863 and for the rest of the war he was away from his Company on a Surgeon's Certificate, detailed as a nurse in the General Military Hospital #2 in Wilson, NC for most of that time. He was paroled at Goldsboro, NC on 15 May 1865.

By 1870 and to at least 1900 he was a farmer at Black Creek in Cross Roads Township, Wilson County, NC.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 via fold3, and the Roster.2. Personal details from family genealogists, notably Al Bass on RootsWeb, and the US Census of 1860-1900, which variously estimated his birth from 1813 to 1821. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Zilphia Bass (1812-1894) in 1843 and they had 5 children. He married again, Zillah "Zillie" Farrell (1839-1907) in February 1896.

c. 1821; Wayne County, NC

1904; Wilson County, NC; burial in Fate-Watson Family Cemetery, Lucama, NC