North Carolina Steps Up For The War Widows

Had no idea ' tar heel ' had been a pejorative term! Not that I ever looked into it- reading say, accounts by veterans it seemed used as more a point of state pride. With reason. It seems generally used as Lee did? Admit to being more interested in North Carolina's war than some others. Two Pitt County brothers migrated to Ohio, two stayed in NC. Cousins fought in both uniforms but it didn't seem to keep the family split post war.

What was the Virginia v. NC point of contention please? I'm seriously not digging for any other reason than trying to figure out how states viewed themselves and each other. There just seems to have been a much stronger sense of identifying with your state than we seem to have in 2019- South and North. It's awfully interesting.

The Virginia v. NC rivalry played a part in the history of the NC 3rd Infantry Regiment, the unit of my avatar Lt. Ward.

The unit had orginally been placed in a CSA brigade along with Arkansas troops. Later the Arkansas troops were transferred elsewhere and replaced by Georgia units. In neither case was the commanding Brigadier a North Carolinian. At the same time, all-NC brigades were being formed in the ANV under the command of NC-born officers. The junior officers of the 3rd began to feel they were entitled to the same treatment and that they were somehow the victims of discrimination when they were not.

One officer of the 3rd wrote that serving in a mixed brigade meant that their mail tended to get lost, that they did not receive equal treatment in the disbursement of supplies, and that opportunities for advancement in rank were limited.

In 1863, the brigade was again reorganized, this time with with mixed NC, Va. and Md. regiments. Gen. Lee complained that the North Carolinians would not serve under a Virginia brigadier, so a Marylander was put in charge.

The NC officers of the 3rd Regiment finally got their wish after the disaster at Spotsylavania. About 80 percent of the regiment was lost at the battle of the Mule Shoe and the remaining fragment of the 3rd was then tranferred to an all-NC brigade under Gen. William Cox. The North Carolinains in Cox's Brigade served together for the remainder of the war.
 
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