Sunday, March 30, 2014

North Carolina Patriots of ’61 – Captain Joseph J. Davis of Louisburg

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Captain Joseph Jonathan Davis of Company G, Forty-seventh North Carolina Regiment, was born near Louisburg 13 April 1828 of distinguished ancestry. His parents were Virginians who had moved to North Carolina after marriage, and sent their son to be educated at Louisburg Academy, Wake Forest College, College of William and Mary, and later to study law at the University of North Carolina where he graduated in 1850.

When war was declared he raised a company of men and though knowing little of military tactics, led them bravely in battle in Pettigrew’s Brigade.  On the third day at Gettysburg he was one of those who went farthest during Pettigrew’s Charge, but captured by the enemy twenty yards from General Armistead when he fell.  Wounded in the shoulder on the first day of battle, a Northern doctor had to cut the sleeve off his coat as it was stiff with blood.  

He was sent first to Fort Delaware, later to Johnson’s Island on Lake Erie.  Paroled on 24 February 1865, he was sent to City Point, Virginia to await exchange – returning home on 3 April, a few days before Appomattox. He was active in the State Legislature 1868-1870 as North Carolina fought carpetbag rule, then resumed the practice of law.  Davis was elected to the United States Congress 1875-1881 and later elected to the Supreme Court of North Carolina.  He passed away after ten years on the bench, 7 August 1892, and was buried in Louisburg’s Oaklawn Cemetery. It is said of Captain Davis that he led “a most useful life, crowed with honors, a man in whom there was no guile, one of God’s noblest creatures.”  

(Confederate Veteran, April 1930, pg. 140)

North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial
Unsurpassed Valor, Courage, and devotion to liberty”   www.ncwbts150.com
“The Official Website of the North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission”

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