April 27
On this day in 1861, Elisha James Cherry enlisted in the “Duplin Grays” at Fort Johnston, on the coast of North Carolina, south of Wilmington. The 5’8, fair-skinned, blond, blue-eyed 21-year old lived with his mother and several siblings on his step-father’s farm in Mount Olive when the war broke out. Two weeks after Fort Sumter surrendered, Elisha ventured with his younger brother, William, and older brother, Willis, to Fort Johnston and enlisted in what became Company E, 20th North Carolina Infantry. William was only 16, and as a result found himself discharged by the regiment’s mustering officer two months later. Their unit remained at Fort Johnston, protecting the coast for the next year, until it was ordered to Richmond on June 14, 1862, joining General Samuel Garland’s brigade to help repel the Union army that was attacking the Confederate capital. On June 26, Elisha and his brother witnessed the battle of Mechanicsville, but their regiment did not participate. When they marched over the battlefield the next day, in pursuit of the Union army, the dead and wounded bodies across the battlefield caused Elisha to lose his nerve. In the late afternoon of Friday, June 27, his regiment lined up on the far left flank of the Confederate army as part of D.H. Hill’s division to participate in the battle of Gaines Mill. As the din of battle reached an unimaginable volume, a terrified Elisha sought a way out of combat. According to regimental clerks, he “shot himself [in the hand] before going in action.” He was “supposed by the whole company to have done it on purpose to keep out of the fight.” One can only imagine what Willis thought of this action. In what would have been their first battle together, Elisha abandoned his brother, who participated and fell with a mortal wound. Willis died nine days later, and a humiliated Elisha eventually returned to the unit. He would be wounded at Chancellorsville and captured at Spotsylvania, and survive the war, but perhaps never fully scrubbed himself clean of the shame of his cowardice before his first battle.
Confederate breakthrough at Gaines Mill.
(from the painting, "Desperate Valor," by Dale Gallon)
Sources:
Weymouth T. Jordan, comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 6:478; 1860 U.S. Census: Duplin County; Elisha J. Cherry, Compiled Military Service Record.
