The Civil War in North Carolina



Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina and Eminent North Carolinians

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marched to the front. Though engaged in slight skirmishes at Williamsburg, the 4th Regiment did not receive its real baptism till May 31, in the bloody battle of Seven Pines. Here, in the absence of General Featherston, Colonel Anderson commanded a Brigade, consisting of the 49th Va., Col. (Ex-Gov.) Wm. Smith; 27th and 28th Georgia, and the 4th N. C The latter went into this battle with 520 men and 27 officers. It lost 86 men killed, 376 wounded, and 24 officers. Such was the gallant bearing and skillful conduct of Colonel Anderson, that he received the highest encomiums from his commander, Gen. D. H. Hill, and was promoted on June the 9th to be a Brigadier-General, and the 2nd, 4th, 14th and 20th regiments of North Carolina troops were assigned as his brigade.

        In the series of battles around Richmond the brigade earned an immortality of renown. At Malvern Hill, Gen. Anderson was wounded in the hand. At the battle of Sharpsburg, Sept. 17th, he occupied a prominent position on slightly rising ground. While thus exposed he was struck by a minnie ball near the ankle joint and fell. He was carried with difficulty and danger to the rear, and subsequently across the Potomac to Sheperdstown. Accompanied by his brother, Lieutenant Robert Walker Anderson, who was afterwards killed, May 5th, 1864, in the Wilderness, he was carried in a wagon up the valley to Stanton, thence by rail to Raleigh. Here at the residence of his brother, Wm. E. Anderson, he received every attention that science and affection could offer. After a fortnight of intense suffering, mortification set in, and amputation was resorted to, as the last hope, but he sank under the operation. On the 16th of Oct. 1862, his pure and noble spirit departed for another and better world.

        He was buried in the city cemetery with obsequies suitable to his gallant conduct, and his heroic death. He married Nov. 8th, 1857, Miss Mildred Ewing, of Louisville.

        While endeavoring to sketch the heroes, statesmen and patriots, the patient and laborious educator of our day should not be neglected. We extract from "the Living Writers of the South," the following tribute to the carefulness and merits of one of our most distinguished men in that useful profession of education--William Bingham.

        He is of the third generation of a race of teachers--teachers who have always maintained a prominent place in that honorable calling. Colonel Bingham was born a school master. He was born on July 7th, 1835, and has followed like the "puer Ascanius" of Virgil in the "passibus equis"of his illustrious sires, his father and grand father. After due preparation by his father, he entered the University and graduated in 1856 in the same class with Clement Dowd, (Mr. Dowd's thesis at this commencement was "the corrupting influences of political controversy.") John T. Gilmore, Thos. B. Slade and others, attaining the first distinction throughout the course.

        This nursery of so many distinguished youths of our State, the Bingham School, was established by the Rev. William Bingham in 1793, it was removed from New Berne to Hillsboro and still survives in undiminished usefulness the pride and ornament of the State. He commenced teaching at 12 years of age, and in 1861 was an author of a text book in Latin.

        He has published:

        1. A Grammar of the Latin, with exercises and vocabularies, Greensboro, 1863.

        2. Cæsar's Commentaries with notes 1864.

        3. A Grammar of the English language, 1867, which is pronounced to be the best grammar ever published in the United States.

        Col. Bingham is preparing an edition of Sallust's "Jugurthine War, and Conspiracy of Cataline"

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