Lieutenant Colonel William F. Beasley, 2nd Regiment N.C. Junior Reserves

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Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Honored Fallen Comrade
Joined
Dec 3, 2011
Location
Laurinburg NC
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William Fessenden Beasley (born February 10, 1845) lived with his brother and widowed mother in the town of Plymouth, Washington County. In 1861 he was a cadet at a military academy, although which one is unknown. The creation of so many new companies and regiments during the weeks after secession left North Carolina’s military short of qualified drill
instructors. One solution was to look to the military academies, and so, at the age of sixteen, Beasley served eighteen days as drillmaster to a North Carolina regiment, for which he was paid the sum of $19.99. His performance must have been satisfactory, because in April 1862 Beasley was again engaged as a drillmaster, this time for the newly-organized 48th Regiment N.C. Troops, which duty he performed until June.

In early August 1862 two officer vacancies occurred in Company H of the 48th North Carolina, most of whose members were from Davidson County. Usually, the men would elect one of their own for such vacancies, but obviously Drillmaster Beasley was well known to them, and so he was elected third lieutenant on August 6 and was promoted to second lieutenant one week later.

Many North Carolina regiments organized in the spring of 1862 saw little fighting but the 48th North Carolina was not among them. By year’s end it had suffered 574 casualties, including 181 men killed or mortally wounded. The heaviest losses were at Sharpsburg and Fredericksburg. The 200 casualties sustained in the latter battle were the most of any North Carolina regiment. One of the Fredericksburg casualties was Beasley, who was severely wounded in the left thigh by a gunshot wound, the bullet striking the bone.

Beasley spent several weeks on wounded furlough, and was promoted to first lieutenant shortly after his eighteenth birthday in February 1863. He returned to duty by early May but, unable to sustain active duty, was hospitalized again and on July 20, 1863, Beasley was placed on detached duty as Assistant Recruiting Officer of the 2nd Congressional District. On October 14, 1863, he was again hospitalized at Richmond with a gunshot wound of the left thigh. The 48th North Carolina had taken heavy casualties the previous day at the Battle of Bristoe Station, but the records are unclear if Beasley had returned to the regiment and sustained a new wound or had aggravated the Fredericksburg wound. In any case, by November 3 he was again on detached duty and ordered to report to Brigadier General Laurence S. Baker, who commanded a military district in eastern North Carolina, “for assignment being unfit for field service.”

In February 1864 the Confederate Congress extended the conscription age upward to age fifty and downward to seventeen. The boys were to be called Junior Reserves, and by June nine battalions had been organized. The 5th Battalion N.C. Junior Reserves, from the counties of Duplin, Greene, Johnston, Lenoir, Pitt, Wayne, and Wilson, fielded three companies, numbering 321 officers and boys. On June 2, 1864, they First Lieutenant Beasley as major.

In July the 2nd and 5th Battalions N.C. Junior Reserves consolidated to form a new command usually known as Anderson’s Battalion N.C. Junior Reserves. Beasley, remaining a major, became second-in-command. In late 1864, with the addition of two more companies, Anderson’s Battalion was redesignated 2nd Regiment N.C. Junior Reserves, and on December 7 Beasley was promoted to lieutenant colonel. At nineteen, he was one of the Confederacy’s youngest field officers.

Few details remain of Beasley service in 1865, but the 2nd Junior Reserves fought at the battles of Wyse’s Fork (March 8-9) and Bentonville (March 19-21). Beasley was a patient at General Hospital No. 11, in Charlotte, when he was paroled in May 1865 in accordance with the terms of General Joseph Johnston’s surrender to General William T. Sherman on April 26.

Beasley died on April 6, 1923, and is buried at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Baltimore, Maryland.)

(The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Regiment N.C. Junior Reserves are often referred to as the “70th, 71st, and 72nd N.C. Regiments,” notably in Clark’s Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina. That usage is strictly post-war, and the regiments were never referred to by those numbers during the war.)

Image: N.C. Office of Archives and History.

Source Note:
1860 U. S. Census, Town of Plymouth, Washington County, North Carolina, population schedule, page 90, dwelling 671, family 671, Mary Beasley household; North Carolina Troops 11:457, 17:235; Mast “North Carolina Casualties”; service record files of William F. Beasley, 2nd Regiment N.C. Junior Reserves and 48th Regiment N.C. Troops, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers from the State of North Carolina (M270), RG109, NA.
 
There is a photograph of the commander of the brigade of the junior reserves, Col John H. Nethercutt?
 
There is a photograph of the commander of the brigade of the junior reserves, Col John H. Nethercutt?

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The only image of him I quickly found, as per findagrave. There is not even a sketch in Clark's regimental histories; neither in the 66th NC Infantry entry nor in the one for the 8th NC Partisan Btln. or the Reserves Brigade.
 
There is a photograph of the commander of the brigade of the junior reserves, Col John H. Nethercutt?

“The North Carolina Junior Reserves Brigade was placed in Hoke's division on March 10 [1865]. Col. John H. Nethercutt of the 66th Regiment N.C. Troops Kirkland's Brigade was assigned to command the Brigade in place of Baker[Brigadier General Lawrence S. Baker] on March 15. Nethercutt was the sort of semi-invalid officer usually chosen to command Reserve units, having been hospitalized almost continuously since an injury at Petersburg the previous June. Baker was sent to Weldon with orders to hold it as long as possible in order to keep the rail network to Northern Virginia open and gather and forward supplies for Lee and Johnston.”

North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865, A Roster, Vol.XVII, Junior Reserves p108.
 
I am looking up info on the 2nd NC Junior Reserves' Colonel John H. Anderson. Not getting many good search results (stuff for LTG Dick Anderson and Col./BG Robert H. Anderson).
 
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