May 26 

 

          On this day in 1863, Private William Lipscomb (1842-1902) was discharged from the 27th North Carolina Infantry when he furnished 49-year old Wilson Brown as a substitute. William was living a comfortable life on his father’s plantation–worked by 52 enslaved persons–in Orange County when he enlisted in the “Orange Guards,” an antebellum militia unit from Hillsborough. The unit was activated into Confederate service in June 1861, but Lipscomb, recovering from an illness, did not officially join until August 4, when the unit was stationed at Fort Macon. The delay perhaps indicates not only weak health, but his father’s hesitancy in allowing his eldest son to join the war. William served with the unit at the Battle of New Bern, and then joined the Army of Northern Virginia. He returned home again in October 1862 on a 20-day furlough for sickness, but returned to serve with the regiment at the battles of Fredericksburg in December 1862. The regiment spent the spring of 1863 in coastal North Carolina and missed the bloody battle of Chancellorsville. However, William’s father, John Lipscomb–who claimed $50,000 in personal property in 1860 (equivalent to nearly $2 million today)--decided that William had served his time and did not want him risking his health or his life in further service. John contracted with Brown, a 49-year-old local blacksmith who had served for a year in the 31st North Carolina Infantry before being discharged in September 1862. We do not know the financial terms that Brown negotiated, but it was likely several thousand dollars–a price John Lipscomb was willing to pay to save his son. William became a tobacco manufacturer in Durham after the war, married twice and had a son, but suffered plenty of tragedy, losing two infants and both of his wives before they reached the age of 30. 

 

Sources:

Weymouth T. Jordan, Jr., comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 8:63, 67; 1860 U.S. Census: Orange County, NC; 1880 U.S. Census: Durham County, NC.