Battle of First Manassas

North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial
www.ncwbts150.com
=======
Battle of First Manassas:

"The six weeks that intervened between Bethel and First Manassas were weeks of ceaseless activity. Regiments marched and countermarched; North Carolina was hardly more than one big camp, quivering with excitement, bustling with energy, overflowing with patriotic ardor. The Confederate army under Generals Johnston and Beauregard was throwing itself into position to stop the "On to Richmond" march of the Federal army under General Irvin McDowell. In this great battle, so signally victorious for the Confederate arms, North Carolina had fewer troops engaged than it had in any other important battle of the armies in Virginia.

Col. W.W. Kirkland's Eleventh (afterward Twenty-first) regiment, with two companies -- Captain Connolly's and Captain Wharton's -- attached, and the Fifth, Lieut.-Col. J.P. jones in command during the sickness of Colonel McRae, were present, but so situated that they took no part in the engagement.

The Sixth [North Carolina] was hotly engaged, however, and lost its gallant colonel, Charles F. Fisher [Fort Fisher on the Cape Fear would be named for him]. When this regiment arrived at Manassas Junction,

the battle was already raging. Colonel Fisher moved his regiment forward entirely under cover until he reached an open field leading up to the famous Henry house plateau, Fisher's presence was not even suspected by the enemy until he broke cover...and with commendable gallantry, but with lamentable inexperience, cried out to his regiment, which was then moving by flank and not in line of battle, "Follow me," and moved directly toward the [enemy artillery] guns.

At this juncture Capt. I.E. Avery said to his courageous colonel, who was also his close friend, "Now we ought to charge." "That is right captain," answered Fisher, and his loud command,
"Charge!" was the last word his loved regiment heard from his lips. In prompt obedience the seven companies rushed up to the guns, whose officers fought them until their men were nearly all cut down and their commander seriously wounded. But the charge was a costly one. Colonel Fisher, in the words of General Beauregard, "fell after soldierly behavior at the head of his regiment with ranks greatly thinned." With him went down many North Carolinians "whose names were not so prominent, but whose conduct was as heroic."

One of the companies composing the Sixth came from Rowan county, and Colonel Fisher himself had long been a conspicuous citizen of Salisbury. From 1851 Fisher had been convinced that secession was inevitable, and after the election of Lincoln he had begun the organization of a volunteer regiment among the young men in the western part of the State, particularly in the counties adjacent to the North Carolina Railroad. The Sixth Regiment, equipped from Fisher's private purse, left its training camp in North Carolina on July 10, and had been at the "front" barely ten days when fate assigned its commander a rendezvous with death. Charles Frederick Fisher was an eminent figure in State politics during the first half of the century, and had been editor of the Western Carolinian at Salisbury and in 1855 had succeeded John M. Morehead as president of the North Carolina Railroad.

The Sixth lost 73 men in killed and wounded. This battle ended the fighting in Virginia for that year [1861]. North Carolina, however, was not so fortunate, for the next month saw [Northern forces descend] upon its coast." (Confederate Military History, D.H. Hill, Jr., pp. 21-23)

www.ncwbts150.com
========
Battle of First Manassas