May 31 

 

          On this day in 1862, Captain Abner David Peace (1838-1915) of the 23rd North Carolina Infantry was shot in the face during the Battle of Seven Pines in Virginia. A 23-year-old artist in Granville County                                                                           when the war began, the olive-skinned, handsome Peace ventured                                                                         to Oxford, North Carolina, on June 5 to enlist in the “Granville                                                                               Targetteers” with his younger brother, 18-year-old Ira. Peace was                                                                           elected 3rd lieutenant that day and eventually would be elected                                                                               Captain of Company E on May 10, 1862 (the same day that Ira was                                                                         promoted to Corporal). He had only been in command of the                                                                                   company for three weeks when his regiment participated in the                                                                               Battle of Seven Pines. As part of Samuel Garland’s brigade in D.H.                                                                         Hill’s division, the 23rd North Carolina attacked east along the                                                                               south side of the Richmond and York River Railroad (see map). In                                                                         the chaotic and poorly managed battle, Abner was felled by a                                                                                   bullet to his face. He miraculously survived and suffered no major                                                                         disfigurement, but he was devastated by the loss of his brother,                                                                               Ira, who was killed in the battle. Abner took nearly seven months to recover from the physical and emotional wounds, but rejoined his unit by January 1863. He would be wounded twice more during the war before surrendering with Lee’s army at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.  

Sources:

Weymouth T. Jordan, Jr., comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 7:184-185, 192-193; 1860 U.S. Census: Granville County, NC; Oxford Public Ledger, October 20, 1915