Tillman Franklin Chance

A tobacco farmer's son, in June 1860 he was an 18 year old laborer living with his parents and 3 siblings on their farm at Reidsville in Rockingham County, NC. By July he was a farmworker living with E.S. Morris, the Morris family, and 11 slaves on their nearby plantation. He enlisted in Lawsonville, NC on 5 August 1861 and mustered as a Private in Company K of the 3rd North Carolina Infantry on 31 August. The regiment was re-designated the 13th North Carolina Infantry on 14 November 1861.

He was wounded in action at Fox's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September 1862 and captured.

He was held at Fort Delaware until 2 October when he was transferred to Aikens' Landing, VA for exchange. He was admitted to a hospital in Richmond, VA on 9 October, furloughed for 25 days on 28 October, formally declared exchanged on 10 November, and returned to duty with his company about January 1863. He was wounded again, by a gunshot on 3 May 1863 at Chancellorsville, VA, and was home on furlough and in hospitals to October 1864. He was assigned by a medical board as a guard in the Medical Purveyor's Department in Charlotte, NC on 1 November and was surrendered and paroled at Greensboro, NC on 4 May 1865 and paroled again at Salisbury, NC on 10 June.

His service from Moore's Roster, 1 which says he was wounded at Sharpsburg on 17 September, and his Compiled Service Records,2 indexed as Tilmon F Chance, online from fold3. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860.

He married Mary A. Fitzgerald in September 1863.

His brothers William Anderson (b. 1837) and Andrew Jackson Chance (b. 1831) were also in Company K. William enlisted in August 1862 and died of disease in October 1862. Andrew enlisted with Tillman, may have been at Sharpsburg, and was killed at Chancellorsville, VA on 3 May 1863.

c. 1842 in NC