May 3
On this day in 1863, William C. Brewer (1844-1910), a 2nd lieutenant in the 2nd North Carolina Infantry, was wounded in the brutal struggle for Fairview at the height of the battle of Chancellorsville. Just a boy of 17 when he enlisted on May 27, 1861–barely two weeks after his birthday–Brewer had been a laborer on his father’s prosperous farm north of New Bern. Rising quickly through the ranks, he was promoted to corporal within six months and commissioned a 2nd lieutenant on February 10, 1863. After participating in the 2nd wave of Stonewall Jackson’s flank attack on the evening of May 2, the 2nd North Carolina (in General Stephen D. Ramseur’s brigade) prepared for a renewed assault on the morning of May 3. Ordered to launch their attack at 9:00 a.m., Brewer declared, “I shall never forget the scene” when General Ramseur stood before his men, raised his sword high, and shouted, “men will you follow me?” The entire brigade rose silently, gripping their rifles “with a look of grim determination” on every face. To Brewer it was haunting–“the only charge on the enemy they ever made without the yell.” Having witnessed the bloody fighting all morning, the fatalistic men advanced “silent as specters.” “Every man in the brigade knew we were being sacrificed,” he recalled. As they moved down the south side of the Orange Turnpike, musket and cannon fire tore into their ranks. “The noise and carnage of battle was deafning,” he wrote. Bodies littered the ground–214 of the 340 men in the regiment fell killed and wounded. Brewer remembered turning back to look at the blood-soaked field they had just crossed. Then came the impact–“a shock and I k[n]ew no more.” He awoke later, wounded, and only then learned that the Confederates had carried the day.
Confederates at the Chancellor house clearing, soon after Fairview fell
Sources:
Louis H. Manarin, comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 3:374-375, 432; 1860 U.S. Census: Craven County; Brewer's memoir quoted in Elizabeth Parnicza, Emerging Civil War Guest Blog, May 5, 2013; William C. Brewer, grave website (findagrave)
