April 18
On this day in 1863, 37-year old John R. Shoffner (1826-1863) was officially mustered into service as a conscript at Camp Gregg eight miles south of Fredericksburg, Virginia, becoming a member of Company E, 13th North Carolina Infantry. A widowed farmer with two children, Shoffner had once owned land and four slaves in Alamance County, but moved back in with his parents after his wife’s death in 1852. By 1860, he worked on his father’s plantation near Graham, along with his younger brother and 16 enslaved people. He did not volunteer in the army, but by April 1863, he could avoid the draft no longer. A mere two weeks after receiving his rifle, Shoffner and his unit marched west to engage the Union Army of the Potomac at the battle of Chancellorsville. On May 2, as part of William Dorsey Pender’s brigade, his regiment joined Stonewall Jackson’s legendary flank attack against the Union army that afternoon. As one regimental captain wrote, the attack completely surprised the Union soldiers: “we leaped the fence and charged them before they knew that we were there. Some were writing letters, some were playing cards, some were shaving, some were cooking beef…” Despite his inexperience, Shoffner’s first combat had been one of the most successful charges of the war. The regiment slept on their arms as Union soldiers hastily erected a new defensive line. At daybreak on May 3, Pender’s brigade attacked again and Shoffner’s luck ran out–he received a mortal gunshot wound in the dawn’s early light. He was loaded onto an ambulance with other wounded and carried to Richmond, where he was admitted to Winder Hospital on May 11. He succumbed to his wound three days later. Shoffner, who had been in uniform less than a month, reflects the tragic fate that befell many conscripts–thrust into war, given little time to learn, and lost before they ever truly became soldiers.
Sketch of Jackson’s flank attack May 2, 1863
Sources
Weymouth T. Jordan, Jr., comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 5:335; John Shoffner, Compiled Military Service Record; Walter Clark, ed., Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions of North Carolina in the Great War, Vol. 1: 653-687; 1860 U.S. Census: Alamance County; 1850 U.S. Census: Alamance County.
