May 5
On this day in 1862, Whitmel Clark (1839-1862), a private in Company B, 5th North Carolina Infantry, fell grievously wounded at the Battle of Williamsburg, Virginia. A native of Gates County, Clark was a fair-skinned, 5’8 young man working as the overseer on Daniel Sessoms’ plantation in Hertford County, supervising 41 enslaved workers when the war erupted. Hearing that Captain William Hill was raising a company from his home county, Clark traveled to Weldon and enlisted on June 12, 1861. After brief training at Camp Winslow in Halifax County, the regiment was ordered to Virginia in time to be present at the Battle of Bull Run, on July 21, though it saw no combat. By the spring of 1862, the 5th North Carolina was entrenched on the Virginia Peninsula, helping defend Yorktown. When the Confederate army retreated in early May, Union forces pressed the rearguard at Williamsburg. On May 5, under steady rain, D.H. Dill’s division, which included the 5th North Carolina, rested on the campus of the College of William and Mary. Around 3:00 p.m., news arrived that Union forces under Winfield Scott Hancock threatened the Confederate left flank. Hill launched an attack without adequate reconnaissance. Charging a battery across an open field, the 5th North Carolina was engulfed in a maelstrom of artillery and musket fire. Colonel Duncan McRae reported “The fire was terrific; my men and officers were falling on every side.” The regiment lost 12 killed and 44 wounded. Among the wounded was Private Clark, who collapsed with gruesome wounds in his left thigh and arm. Colonel McRae, with considerable understatement, conceded, “The charge upon the battery was not attended by success.” When McRae ordered a retreat. Clark, unable to join his comrades, fell captive when Union forces occupied the field. Taken to the National Hotel General Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, he lingered for weeks before succumbing to his wounds on June 11, 1862.
Clark’s grave at Loudon Park Cemetery, Baltimore
Weymouth T. Jordan, Jr., comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 4: 116-117, 146, 700; 186o U.S. Census: Hertford County; 1850 U.S. Census: Gates County; Baltimore Sun, June 13, 1862
