Carpenter's Battery

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Carpenter's Battery, also known as Alleghany Artillery or Alleghany Rough Artillery, was a famed Confederate artillery battery unit in the American Civil War. [1] The unit was first organized at Covington, Virginia on April 20, 1861 as Company A of the 27th Virginia Infantry Regiment, the "Alleghany Roughs." [2] When the Captain who organized the company resigned due to ill health, the captaincy devolved upon his First Lieutenant, Joseph Hannah Carpenter, who was born in 1834 at Covington, Virginia, in Alleghany County, Virginia. Carpenter had been an artillery cadet under General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson in the class of 1858 at Virginia Military Institute [3] and legend has it that General Jackson recognized his former student's name on the company muster roll and ordered the company converted to an artillery battery with Carpenter as its captain, thus becoming "Carpenter's Battery."

Confederate States of America (de facto) federal republic in North America from 1861 to 1865

The Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy and the South, was an unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865. The Confederacy was originally formed by seven secessionist slave-holding states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—in the Lower South region of the United States, whose economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African-American slaves.

Artillery battery artillery unit equivalent to an infantry company

In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit of artillery, mortars, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface to surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles etc., so grouped to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems. The term is also used in a naval context to describe groups of guns on warships.

American Civil War Civil war in the United States from 1861 to 1865

The American Civil War was a war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War is the most studied and written about episode in U.S. history. Primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people, war broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to uphold slavery.

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Among the original members of the company were Joseph's brothers John Cadwalider Carpenter and Samuel Steuben Carpenter. [4] The brothers played a central role in the unit's wartime service. When the company's commissioned officers were reorganized after the First Battle of Manassas, Joseph H. Carpenter became the captain of the battery with John C. Carpenter as his first lieutenant; in a later reorganization John C. Carpenter became the captain of the battery with Samuel S. Carpenter as his second lieutenant. [5] Captain Joseph H. Carpenter was wounded in action on August 9, 1862 at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, and died from the effects of his wound on February 5, 1863 at his parents' home, Fort Carpenter, Virginia. [6] John Cadwalider Carpenter, born in 1839 at Covington, Virginia, served as captain of the battery after his brother Joseph was wounded; he commanded the battery through many engagements, including fifteen major battles, and lost an arm in combat at the Battle of Fisher's Hill, but survived the war. [7]

First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces and, in some forces, an appointment.

Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1a rank.

Battle of Cedar Mountain battle

The Battle of Cedar Mountain, also known as Slaughter's Mountain or Cedar Run, took place on August 9, 1862, in Culpeper County, Virginia, as part of the American Civil War. Union forces under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks attacked Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson near Cedar Mountain as the Confederates marched on Culpeper Court House to forestall a Union advance into central Virginia. After nearly being driven from the field in the early part of the battle, a Confederate counterattack broke the Union lines resulting in a Confederate victory. The battle was the first combat of the Northern Virginia Campaign.

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References

  1. ↑ Clarence Albert Fonerden. 1911. A Brief History of the Military Career of Carpenter's Battery from its Organization as a Rifle Company under the Name of the Alleghany Roughs to the Ending of the War Between the States. New Market, Va.: Henkel & Co., Printers, 78 pp.
  2. ↑ Joseph H. Carpenter papers. (MS #333), Virginia Military Institute Archives, online guide accessible at http://www.vmi.edu/archives.aspx?id=3945; and Fonerden, p. 68.
  3. ↑ Fonerden, p. 15.
  4. ↑ Fonerden, p. 68; and Mary Evelyn Harlow Carpenter: The Carpenters of Fort Carpenter, 1746-1949, privately published, Covington, Va., ca. 1949, 67 pp. + pls.
  5. ↑ Fonerden, p. 15.
  6. ↑ U.S. National Park Service: 27th Virginia Infantry, Record After First Manassas, http://www.nps.gov/mana/forteachers/upload/27thVaRecAfterAvery5389.pdf.
  7. ↑ Carpenter: The Carpenters of Fort Carpenter, 1746-1949.
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