On 8 December, 1864, General Whiting was notified by General Lee
that the Fifth and Second Corps of Grant’s army, with Bragg’s
Division of Cavalry, were moving under General Warren upon Weldon,
and that they were near Belfield and that Hill and Hampton were
following them. One object of this raid was to destroy the railroad
bridge at Weldon and thus cut off supplies for Lee’s army from
that direction. General Whiting at once ordered Colonel George
Jackson to proceed with the Fourth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth
Battalions of Junior Reserves and four pieces of Paris’ Artillery
with three days’ cooked rations, to Weldon, and there report for
temporary service to General Leventhorpe, commanding. The latter,
an Englishman by birth, was the first Colonel of the Thirty-fourth
and then of the Eleventh North Carolina Regiments, and had done
splendid service in clearing the enemy from the Roanoke river and
in defending the Wilmington & Weldon Railway.
The four battalions assembled in Wilmington from Sugar Loaf and
Smithville. Through the efforts of Major French, the troops were
here shod. They were placed on flat cars and thus exposed, were
transported to Weldon. The weather was intensely cold. More than
once the train had to be stopped, fires made in the woods and some
of the boys lifted from the train and carried to the fires and
thawed out. Many went to sleep in their wet clothes to find them
frozen stiff upon awakening. This suffering was undergone without a
murmur. The old guard of Napoleon on the retreat from Moscow, never
displayed more heroism and fortitude than did the boy-soldiers--the
“Young Guard of the Confederacy.”
Under the law, the reserves could not be required to cross their
State lines, but without hesitation and without an exception, the
brave boys at Weldon hurried on to Belfield, Virginia, there to
meet the invading foe. The Federals withdrew, leaving their dead
unburied, after a sharp fire and repulse from the reserves who had
just reached the battlefield, and the latter joined in the pursuit
across the Meherrin river at Hicks’ Ford. On 17 December, 1864,
the General Assembly of North Carolina, recognizing their heroism,
passed the following resolutions:
“WHEREAS, The Legislature has heard with satisfaction of the
good conduct of the officers and soldiers of the Junior Reserves
and Home Guards, who volunteered to cross the State line into
Virginia, in order to repel the late advance of the public enemy
on Weldon; therefore,
“_Resolved_, That the officers and soldiers of the Junior
Reserves and Home Guards, so acting, deserve the commendation of
their fellow citizens, and are entitled to the thanks of this
Legislature.”
“_Resolved_, That a copy of these proceedings be transmitted to
Lieutenant-General Holmes and Major-General R. C. Gatlin, that it
may be communicated to the commands which they are intended to
honor.”
From Belfield the four battalions, together with the First and
Second Regiments of Junior Reserves, were ordered, under Colonel
Leventhorpe, to Tarboro to repel a Federal raid from Washington,
N. C. The command moved to Hamilton, some miles below Tarboro.
The enemy retired upon the advance of the Confederate troops. The
battalions remained there a day or two and returned to Tarboro. The
troops camped about a mile northeast of the town for several days.
The boys were without overcoats, tents or tent flies, and lay upon
the bare ground in the rain and sleet and snow. Many of them were
frost bitten. A good old farmer along side of whose fence the boys
camped on the first night of their stay, kindly gave them leave
to start their fires by using the top rail of his fence. When he
came back next morning there was not a rail to be seen. When he
protested with some warmth, saying that they had taken more than he
had given them leave to take, one wag said: “No, sir; as long as
there was a top rail, we had your permission to burn it. We never
took any but the top rail.” The old man laughed good naturedly and
left.
The severity of the experience of the Reserves on the Belfield
expedition may be realized when it is stated that although they
had been in camp over six months and had been somewhat enured to
a soldier’s life, over one-half of them were sent to the hospital
when the battalions returned to Wilmington.
The command was marched from Tarboro to Goldsboro and by train was
conveyed to Wilmington, and thence back to Sugar Loaf. There they
remained under the command of General W. W. Kirkland until the
battle of Fort Fisher. This officer was a splendid fighter and a
superb soldier. He was Colonel of the Twenty-first North Carolina
Regiment, and afterwards commanded Early’s Brigade, Pettigrew’s
Division. He had taken part in many of the desperate battles of
Virginia and had been twice severely wounded. He was transferred
to Wilmington late in December and established his headquarters at
Sugar Loaf.