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Appendix: first and last blood of the war.
While the
battle of Bethel is recorded in the foregoing pages as the first decided fight of the
War between the States, it may leave erroneous impression not to note the date of “first blood” really shed in action on southern soil.
In the report of the Adjutantgen-eral of the
State of Virginia for 1866, occurs this entry:
J. Q. Marr, graduated July 4. 1846.
Lawyer, Member of the Virginia Convention.
Entered infantry service as
Captain of Virginia Volunteers, April 1, 1861.
Killed at Fairfax Courthouse, Virginia, May 13, 1861. First blood of the war.
Naturally, many conflicting statements as to the last effective shot of the long struggle were made and received as true.
The most reliable would appear to be the followingt reproduced from a paper printed by the boys of
Mr. Denson's school, in the village of
Pittsboro, N. C., in 1866:
The accomplished author of that series of interesting papers, “The last ninety days of the war in
North Carolina,” published
in The Watchman,
New York, states that the last blood of the war was shed near the
Atkins plantation, a few miles from
Chapel Hill, on the 14th April, 1865.
In a later number of the same paper, a member of the First Tennessee Cavalry says that it is a mistake; that companies F1 and F2 of the same regiment to which he belonged, skirmished sharply with the
Federals on the 15th, and claims that this was the last blood shed.
Both are in error: there was a skirmish near Mt. Zion church, two miles south-east of
Pittsboro.
North Carolina. between a body of
Wheeler's cavalry and a party of Federals, on the 17th of April; two Yankees were wounded.
and three others, with several horses, captured.
There was other skirmishing in the neighborhood about this time, and as late as the 29th (two days after
General Johnston surrendered), a squad of Federal cavalry rode through
Pittsboro, firing upon the citizens and returned soldiers, and receiving their fire in return.
These men were pursued and overtaken near
Haw river, where a skirmish occurred, in which two of the
Yankees were killed and two others wounded, one mortally.
This
Haw river incident is a familiar and well authenticated one and most probably it really showed the last of the long bloodshed.
