CLARK NC: Rowan North Carolina Artillery at the Siege of Petersburg

CLARK NC: Rowan NC Artillery at the Siege of Petersburg

Editor’s Note: The following excerpt comes from Walter Clark’s five volume Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War 1861-’65, published in 1901.  The reference work provides mini regimental histories written mostly by men representing each unit, with gaps filled in by editor Clark.  These histories often provide a surprising amount of detail on the Siege of Petersburg.

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The battalion [Haskell’s Battalion/First Corps Arty/ANV] was held in reserve till 8 May, when it was sent forward to aid the cavalry. It was thenceforward more or less engaged all along in the famous struggle from the Wilderness to the James, especially it was actively engaged 9 May [at Spotsylvania Court House], 1 June and 3 June [at Cold Harbor]. On 7 June Haskell’s Battalion passed to the south side of the Chickahominy and 16 June crossed the James River on the pontoon-bridge. In this series of battles the battalion of four batteries lost fifteen killed and fifty-one wounded.

On 31 August, 1864, the returns show that the “Rowan” Battery [Ramsey’s NC Battery aks 1^st North Carolina Artillery, Battery D] was then commanded by Lieutenant Ezekiel Myers, and the returns of the battery 9 April, 1864 [1865?], showed one hundred and thirty-six total present, with seventy-eight serviceable horses and one three-inch rifle cannon and three ten-pound Parrotts as equipment.

The battery, as a part of Haskell’s Battalion, and attached to the First Corps (Longstreet), took part in the fighting around Petersburg and in the retreat to Appomattox, where it was surrendered with the army and the few survivors of its glorious career were paroled. Lieutenant Jesse F. Woodard was in command of the battery at its surrender.¹

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