Fighting for General Lee: Confederate General Rufus Barringer and the North Carolina Cavalry Brigade - Hardcover

Barringer, Sheridan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1611212626 ISBN 13: 9781611212624

Verlag: Savas Beatie, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Winner, 2016, The Douglas Southall Freeman AwardRufus Barringer fought on horseback through most of the Civil War with General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, and rose to lead the North Carolina Cavalry Brigade in some of the war’s most difficult combats. Fighting for General Lee: Confederate General Rufus Barringer and the North Carolina Cavalry Brigade details his entire history for the first time.Barringer raised a company early in the war and fought with the 1st North Carolina Cavalry from the Virginia peninsula through Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. He was severely wounded in the face at Brandy Station, during the opening hours of the Gettysburg Campaign. Because of his severe wound, he missed the remainder of the Gettysburg Campaign, returning to his regiment in mid-October, 1863. Within three months he was a lieutenant colonel, and by June 1864 a brigadier general in command of the North Carolina Brigade, which fought the rest of the war with Lee and was nearly destroyed during the retreat from Richmond in 1865. The captured Barringer met President Lincoln at City Point, endured prison, and after the war did everything he could to convince North Carolinians to accept Reconstruction and heal the wounds of war.Fighting for General Lee by Sheridan R. Barringer draws upon a wide array of newspapers, diaries, letters, and previously unpublished family documents and photographs, as well as other firsthand accounts, to paint a broad, deep, and colorful portrait of an overlooked Southern cavalry commander. Despite its subject matter, the book is a balanced account that concludes Barringer was a dependable, hard-hitting warrior increasingly called upon to lead attacks against superior Union forces.This remarkable new biography teaches us many things. It is easy today to paint all who wore Confederate gray with a broad brush because they fought on the side to preserve slavery. Here, however, was a man who wielded the sword and then promptly sheathed it to follow a bolder vision. Barringer proved to be a bold champion of the poor, the black, and the masses—a Southern gentleman and man decades ahead of his time that made a difference in the lives of North Carolinians.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sheridan R. “Butch” Barringer lives with his wife, Pam, in Newport News, Virginia. He graduated from Virginia Tech and worked as a mechanical engineer and project manager for nearly four decades with NASA. Butch’s interests include studying Civil War history, with an emphasis on the cavalry, and physics and cosmology. Butch has two other books under contract with Savas Beatie: a biography of General Thomas L. Rosser, and an edited memoir written by Rosser. He is currently at work on a biography of Colonel Thomas T. Munford.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Fighting for General Lee

General Rufus Barringer and the North Carolina Cavalry Brigade

By Sheridan R. Barringer

Savas Beatie LLC

Copyright © 2016 Sheridan R. Barringer
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-61121-262-4

Contents

Preface, 
Acknowledgments, 
Foreword, 
Introduction, 
Chapter 1 The Young North Carolina Lawyer, 
Chapter 2 Politics, Tragic Love, and Secession, 
Chapter 3 Sectional Crisis, Slavery, and Secession: Prelude to War, 
Chapter 4 Rufus Barringer: North Carolina Cavalry Officer, 
Chapter 5 The Campaigns of 1862 and Early 1863, 
Chapter 6 1863: Brandy Station, the Bristoe Campaign, and Personal Loss, 
Chapter 7 The 1864 Campaigns, 
Chapter 8 Barringer's Final Battles, 
Chapter 9 A Prisoner of War, 
Chapter 10 The Trials of Reconstruction, 
Chapter 11 Final Public Service, Retirement, and Death, 
Bibliography, 

CHAPTER 1

"An important period is drawn to a close! This day brings an end to my boyhood. ... But farewell — forever — farewell to childhood dreams. Alas! I'm now a man."

— Rufus Barringer's Journal, December 1, 1842.

The Young North Carolina Lawyer

Rufus Barringer descended from two generations of Southern aristocracy. His grandfather, Johann Paulus Beringer, was one of the early German Lutheran settlers to migrate to western North Carolina, where he became a leading civilian in the area. His father, Paul Barringer, was a wealthy farmer, civic leader, business man, and politician of Cabarrus County.

These men had an enormous influence on the young man who would mature into a lawyer, a Confederate general and war hero, and Tar Heel politician of influence.

Johann Paulus Barringer (1721-1807)

Johann Paulus Beringer (anglicized to John Paul Barringer) was one of the early pioneers who settled near Mount Pleasant, North Carolina, 28 miles northeast of Charlotte. Johann was born in June 1721 and baptized a few months later on September 25 in Schwaigern in the southern German Duchy of Wurttemberg (near the present town of Heilbronn). Johann grew into a strapping young man and left home at the age of 22, like so many young men do, in search of adventure and the desire to own his own land. He sailed from Rotterdam for America aboard the American ship Phoenix and landed at Philadelphia on September 30, 1743.

Unlike many emigrants from Germany who were able to pay for their trip to America, John Paul paid for his passage by becoming an indentured servant to his future father-in-law. He completed his service in one year and in 1744 married Ann Eliza Eisman, a young woman who had come to America at the age of nine. The couple settled near the present town of North Bethel in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

About 1750, the tide of German Lutheran emigration turned from previous movement to the western counties of Pennsylvania southward toward western North Carolina. German Lutherans by the hundreds departed their Pennsylvania homes and moved southward to the Piedmont region for a variety of reasons. Some sought more abundant hunting grounds as skin and fur trading remained profitable. Others desired good, fertile, and inexpensive farmland. Others felt the call to greater religious freedom and a chance for expanded missionary activity. The Carolinas afforded all of these opportunities and more.

John Paul, Ann Eliza and their daughter Catherine, born November 24, 1750, left for North Carolina about 1751. The couple's son John was born on November 26, 1752, after the Barringers reached their new home at Dutch Buffalo Creek, two and one-half miles northeast of Mount Pleasant in Anson County (now Cabarrus County).

Barringer, as one of the early settlers in the fertile lands of the piedmont section of North Carolina, became a successful farmer. He also prospered through commerce by sending corn, wheat, barley, rye, and indigo to Charleston, South Carolina, via the well-traveled wagon road from Salisbury, North Carolina. In addition to farming, he operated a saw mill and also accumulated considerable property. What began with his original homestead of 300 acres would grow to more than 2,500 acres of prime farmland. Perhaps because of his success, he made it a point to help others arriving from Pennsylvania to settle in their new homes, and became increasingly influential among the German settlers.

In 1768, Royal Governor William Tryon, in an effort to conciliate the people of restive western North Carolina, made a visit to Mecklenburg County. Governor Tryon wanted to assure the people that measures were being taken to curb recent abuses of power by county officials. In this way, he hoped to diffuse the "Regulators," a group of citizens who were taking steps to oppose increased taxation and other moves by the Crown. Among others, Tryon visited John Paul, who by this time was a militia captain. In the governor's journal is recorded the following: "Wednesday, August 31, 1768. The Governor waited on Captain Barringer; a beautiful plantation and skillfully managed, particularly the meadow land, which produced excellent hay." Governor Tryon left believing he had no "stauncher friend for the Crown than the 'Gallant Dutchman' [Barringer] in all the county." In this, however, Tryon would be disappointed. Seven short years later, Barringer's loyalties rested with the colonists during the American Revolution.

John Paul was a man of deep religious convictions and was generous to his church. At his suggestion circa 1771, members of the Lutheran Church separated themselves from their German Reformed brethren and built their own church on the site of the upper portion of the old graveyard. St. John's Lutheran Church was built chiefly at Barringer's expense, and out of gratitude the congregation erected a raised and enclosed pew for the special use of his family.

John Paul and Ann Eliza Barringer spent 25 laborious, productive, and happy years together, although they had no children other than Catherine and John. Sadly, Ann died just before the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775.

John Paul had been appointed a magistrate for the Crown on December 31, 1762, and served in that capacity until the Revolution. One month after the historic passage of the Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia, the Hillsboro Provisional Congress of August 1776 set up a provisional North Carolina government and began preparations for war. On November 12, a constitutional convention at Halifax established a state constitution and bill of rights. Under the provisions of the new constitution, on December 23, 1776, John Paul was appointed a justice of the peace. Thereafter, advocates for breaking all political ties with the mother country used his home as a rallying place.

When armed conflict between Great Britain and her colonies broke out, Royal Governor Josiah Martin offered John Paul a military command in an effort to secure his allegiance to the Crown. The Dutch plantation owner, however, refused. He was already a member of the Mecklenburg County "Committee of Safety," a group of "selectmen" formed to organize, drill and equip troops. They also managed the county government, which included the collection of taxes and expenditure of funds, in support of the rebellion. In 1778, the Committee of Safety appointed John Paul as road overseer, and in 1779 as overseer of the poor and tax assessor. Recent research indicates that though he was 55 years old in 1776, he and his eldest son (John Barringer Sr.) both served as captains in the Mecklenburg Militia. John Paul's...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Savas Beatie
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1611212626
• ISBN 13: 9781611212624
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar