John Rich Ireland

Son of a prosperous farmer, in 1860 he was a 17 year old student living with his parents, 5 siblings, and 18 slaves at Graham in Alamance County, NC. He enlisted there on 8 May 1861 and mustered as a Private in Company E of the 3rd North Carolina Infantry on 15 May in Garysburg, NC. The regiment was re-designated the 13th North Carolina Infantry on 14 November 1861.

He was with his company in Maryland and Lieutenant Colonel Ruffin later wrote "John R. Neland [Ireland], of Company E, acted particularly well, and is respectfully mentioned as worthy of promotion ..." for his actions at Fox's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862.

He was appointed 3rd Sergeant on 25 September and promoted to 3rd Lieutenant on 17 November 1862. He was wounded by a gunshot to his calf at Gettysburg, PA on 3 July 1863, on wounded furlough from 29 July to 26 November, then on detail to the Conscript Department in North Carolina to at least October 1864. He was wounded again, place not given, by a gunshot to his back and left shoulder and admitted to a hospital in Richmond, VA on 28 March 1865. He was sent back to duty on 2 April with no later military record.

In 1870 he was a deputy sheriff living with his parents on their farm in Alamance County. He was arrested, with others, in July of 1870 by Federal authorities for being a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but when Republican Governor Holden was impeached and removed from office in March 1871, the charges were dropped. By 1880 and to at least 1900 he farmed his own place in Alamance county.

His service from Moore's Roster 1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. The quote above from Lieutenant Colonel Ruffin's after-action report. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860-1900. The KKK detail from MosaicNC; the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Reseources. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Julia Franklin (1844-1909) in March 1872 and they had 4 children.

A least a couple of online sources credit him, with two others, with capturing Brigadier General Rutherford B Hayes at Chancellorsville, VA in May 1863. This story is probably not true, as Hayes was apparently never captured during the war, at Chancellorsville or anywhere else.

05/18/1841; Alamance, NC

03/15/1909; Burlington, NC; burial in Pine Hill Cemetery, Burlington, NC