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(c. 1837 - 1899)
Home State: North Carolina
Branch of Service: Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
In 1860 he was a 25 (23?) year old farmer on the widow Emily Califer's place at Tally Ho in Granville County, NC. He enlisted at Oxford, NC on 5 June 1861 and mustered in Weldon, NC on 13 July as 3rd Corporal of Company E, 13th Regiment North Carolina Volunteers. They were re-designated the 23rd North Carolina Infantry in November 1861. He was First Corporal by December 1861 and was appointed First Sergeant on 10 May 1862.
On the Campaign
He was with his company in Maryland and was later mentioned by Brigadier General D.H. Hill for having "exhibited extraordinary coolness and daring" on the campaign. He may have been the sharpshooter who shot Union General Jesse Reno at Fox's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September.* He was wounded in the right calf in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862 and captured there.
The rest of the War
He was treated at the US 2nd Division, 2nd Army Corps field hospital on the Susan Hoffman farm near Sharpsburg and paroled there on 1 October. He was at Fort McHenry in Baltimore by 13 October, then sent to Fortress Monroe, VA for exchange. He was furloughed home from a hospital in Richmond, VA on 5 November 1862 and was in hospitals and on furlough to December 1863 when he was deemed disabled for further field service, reduced to Private, and detailed on light duty. He was formally certified disabled in March 1864 and remained on detail, initially assigned to the Quartermaster at Hillsboro, NC, to 7 March 1865 when he was retired to the Invalid Corps and assigned to the post Quartermaster at Oxford, NC.
References & notes
His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3. The D.H. Hill reference is his after-action report. An assertion that he killed General Reno is found in Clark.2 Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Lucinda Clay Suit (1844-1896) in January 1865 and they had 9 children.
* Antietam historian Ezra Carman3 suggests that Jesse Reno was killed at Fox's Gap by fire from members of Hood's Division, based on (much) later communication with at least one battle veteran. North Carolinian D. H. Hill, on the other hand, in his report wrote
The Yankees on their side lost General Reno, a renegade Virginian, who was killed by a happy shot from the Twenty-third North Carolina.Some accounts, including Reno's own impression, was that he'd been hit by friendly fire, but that's pretty clearly not true.
Birth
c. 1837; Granville County, NC
Death
09/18/1899; burial in Suit Family Cemetery, Granville County, NC
1 US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, Record Group No. 109 (War Department Collection of Confederate Records), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927 [AotW citation 34043]
2 "General Jesse L. Reno ... was killed at long range by Charles W. Bennett, of Granville County, Orderly Sergeant of Company E."
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, Vol. II, p. 221 [AotW citation 34044]
3 Carman, Ezra Ayers, and Dr. Thomas G. Clemens, editor, The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, 3 volumes, El Dorado Hills (CA): Savas Beatie, 2010-17, Vol. 1, p. 243 [AotW citation 34046]