May 15
On this day in 1864, James M. Pipkin, a deserter from the 1st North Carolina Artillery, penned a plea from a Confederate prison in Plymouth, North Carolina, to Governor Zebulon Vance, requesting his release. Pipkin, a 26-year old farm laborer from Wayne County, had married in January 1862 and relocated with his wife and widowed mother to neighboring Johnston County soon after. With his wife seven months pregnant, Pipkin was conscripted into service on October 1, 1862. He briefly went AWOL in December to attend the birth of their daughter, then returned to his unit. Pipkin deserted in April 1863, returned briefly, and then deserted again. Arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to be executed, he appealed to Vance in February 1864 for mercy. Despite objections from the Secretary of War, who claimed there were “no circumstances of special extenuation” that warranted clemency, Vance intervened and got Pipkin’s sentence commuted to long-term imprisonment. Still dissatisfied, Pipkin wrote Vance again on May 15, emphasizing his readiness to serve: “I am in good health and capiable of performing A soldiers dutie in any practical form.” Pipkin attempted to cajole the governor in this gubernatorial election year by promising his vote to “aid you in holding the hy position you now occupy.” He also highlighted his family’s dire situation, writing, “I have a wife and child and A poor old feble mother and they are almost entirely dependent on me for there support.” Having intervened once to save his life, however, Vance did not intervene a second time. Pipkin was transferred to the Confederate military prison in Salisbury, where he spent the remainder of the war. Despite being admitted to the prison hospital four times for diarrhea, bronchitis, and pneumonia, Pipkin survived the war. His wife and daughter also endured the hardships of war, and the couple went on to have four more children in the postwar years.
Confederate Military Prison in Salisbury, where Pipkin spent the last six months of the war.
Sources:
Louis H. Manarin, comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 1:121; James M. Pipkin to Zebulon B. Vance, May 15, 1864, Governors Papers, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC; 1860 U.S. Census: Wayne County, NC; 1880 U.S. Census: Johnston County, NC; North Carolina, U.S. Marriage Records, 1741-2011; James M. Pipkins, Compiled Military Service Record; Aldo S. Perry, Civil War Courts-Martial of North Carolina Troops (2012), 295-296
