12th North Carolina Infantry

The first companies of troops that made up the regiment began drilling in Raleigh in April 1861. Originally organized as the Second Regiment of Volunteers, they were formally re-numbered the Twelfth of State Troops to avoid confusion between Volunteers and State Troop units in May 1861.

Walter A. Montgomery, formerly Lieutenant, Co. F wrote of the Regiment in Maryland years later in Clark's Histories1:

The Twelfth Regiment was engaged with Garland's Brigade at Boonsboro and Sharpsburg. Its conduct at Boonsboro has been censured severely by both General D. H. Hill and Colonel Duncan K. MacRae, who commanded the brigade after the fall of Garland. General Hill was not in person at that part of the field on which the Twelfth was engaged, and in his official report of the battle made no criticism on the behavior of the regiment.
His hostile criticism was made nearly a quarter of a century after the battle was fought, and in a magazine ("The Century," May, 1886) article. In his official report, made shortly after the battle, he said: "Garland's Brigade was badly demoralized by his fall and by the rough handling it had received." And again : " Garland's Brigade had behaved nobly until demoralized by the fall of its gallant leader and being outflanked by the Yankees."

Colonel MacRae was a man of commanding gifts, but of very strong prejudices, and the whole brigade knew of his prejudice against the Twelfth Regiment. The severity of discipline over bis own regiment was universally known, and because the Twelfth was not willing to submit to such discipline in camp as he enforced on his own men, he always spoke of the Twelfth as a lot of "undisciplined gentlemen who thought themselves better than others."

Language so plain would not have been used by this writer but for its necessity. The honor of the Twelfth Regiment was questioned. A short and plain and accurate account of the part taken by the regiment at Boonsboro is necessary. After the seven days' battles the regiment scarcely numbered two hundred men. The long and exhaustive march through Virginia, and until Boonsboro was reached, laid on the road-side many of the survivors of these battles. They fell out, not from cowardice, but because from hunger and thirst and heat and marching nature had been exhausted, and this was the case with every regiment in the Army of Northern Virginia. When the Potomac was crossed, on the march into Maryland, a considerable detachment from this regiment was placed on rear-guard, and at the battle of Boonsboro it had not arrived. At the opening of that battle Lieutenant B. M. Collins, of Company C, who was present until the close, and who was wounded after sundown in line with the regiment, counted the muskets, and they numbered ninety-two. Its losses were severe in killed and wounded, numbering fifty-eight, according to the report of Lieutenant Collins.

Captains John R. Turnbull and Robert W. Alston were among the wounded. The attack of the enemy turned the right flank of the brigade, broke it and separated it from the left. The broken part retreated down the mountains, and with it was a small part of the Twelfth Regiment. The greater part of the regiment, with the flag, was in its place the whole day. That part of it which left the line carried with it the young captain (Snow), who was in command in the beginning of the action.

After the battle the regiment was rejoined by some who had fallen out on the long march, and at Sharpsburg it followed the fortunes of D. H. Hill's Division during the entire day, and maintained the reputation it had won at Cold Harbor and Malvern Hill.

Detail Map #3: Mansfield's Twelfth Corps Attacks into Miller's Cornfield (7-9 am)
Detail Map #9: Richardson's Division Attacks the Sunken Road (10-11 am)

Tablet #332: D. H. Hill's Division, Jackson's Command - 14 Sep, 10 PM to 16 Sep, 9 PM
Tablet #384: D. H. Hill's Division, Jackson's Command - 14 Sep, 10 PM to 16 Sep, 9 PM
Tablet #303: Longstreet's Command - 14 Sep, 9 PM to 15 Sep, 12 PM
Tablet #340: Garland's Brigade, D. H. Hill's Division - 16 Sep, 8 PM to 17 Sep, 5 PM
Tablet #315: Jackson's Command - 17 Sep, 5 AM to 17 Sep, 10 AM
Tablet #333: D. H. Hill's Division, Jackson's Command - 17 Sep, 7 AM to 17 Sep, 1 PM
Tablet #304: Longstreet's Command - 17 Sep, 7 AM to 17 Sep, 3 PM
Tablet #385: D. H. Hill's Division, Jackson's Command - 17 Sep, 7 AM to 17 Sep, 5 PM
Tablet #365: Colquitt's and Garland's Brigades - 17 Sep, 8 AM to 17 Sep, 3 PM

Organization information from Clark1.