NC Patriots of ’61 – Private Henry Armand London
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
North Carolina Patriots of ’61 – Private Henry Armand London
Born at Pittsboro 1 March 1846 to Henry Adolphus and Sally Lord London,
schooled at Pittsboro Academy and the University of North Carolina. He
abandoned his studies at Chapel Hill in November 1864 to enlist as a
private in Company I (Chatham County) of Col. E.C. Brabble’s
Thirty-second North Carolina Regiment, detailed as a headquarters
courier for General Bryan Grimes at Petersburg. During the retreat to
Appomattox he carried the final order that directed General William R.
Cox to cease firing and withdraw, as Lee had surrendered his army.
He returned to Chapel Hill after the war and received the degrees of A.B
and A.M., and studied law under Dr. John Manning. London opened his
law practice at Pittsboro in January 1867, and also served as reading
clerk of the North Carolina Senate 1870-1872. In 1878 established the
Chatham Record, a successful and influential weekly newspaper he edited
for forty years. London married Bettie Louise Jackson (1853-1930), the
granddaughter of Gov. Jonathan Worth. Their union produced eight
children.
London was a leader in local and State politics, for forty years a
member of the Democratic State Committee. He was elected State Senator
in 1900, reelected in 1902, and served as a Trustee of the University of
North Carolina. Proud of his patriotic service to North Carolina
during the war, London served as adjutant-general and chief of staff of
the North Carolina Division, United Confederate Veterans. He helped
establish and maintain the Confederate Home at Raleigh, and made sure to
attend all local, State and national reunions of Confederate Veterans.
A regular lecturer of the time on historical topics to the Press
Association and other groups, he contributed greatly to the literature
of the war to include an 1886 memorial on the life and services of Gen.
Bryan Grimes, “The Last at Appomattox,” and his History of the
Thirty-second North Carolina Regiment, found in Judge Walter Clark’s
Regimental Histories. Major London was instrumental in the erection of a
monument at Appomattox marking the location of General Bryan Grime’s
Division, and the last shot fired by North Carolinians.
Major London died “during the night of January 19th, 1918, on General
Lee’s birthday,” being dressed in his grey uniform and “given the last
rites of a Confederate soldier.” It was reported that “many
distinguished North Carolinians attended his burial” in the churchyard
of St. Bartholomew’s at Pittsboro, the service conducted by Bishop
Joseph B. Cheshire. Judge Walter Clark, London’s Chapel Hill classmate,
eulogized that he was “as gallant a soldier as ever wore the gray, and
since the war, a leading lawyer and editor and one of the most prominent
men in the State.”
Sources:
North Carolina, Rebuilding an Ancient Commonwealth, Archibald Henderson, AHS, 1928
Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, William S. Powell, UNC Press, 1991
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