Eyewitness Account: A Tar Heel at Gettysburg

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Lawrence Decatur Davis was born on June 22, 1833, in Halifax County, Virginia, and attended Hampden-Sydney College, but ran away to find adventure in Texas. According to family lore, he came back to Virginia so handsomely dressed in buckskin that Mildred Eldridge, a neighbor, immediately fell in love with him. They were married in 1857.

Lawrence enlisted in the Confederate Army on March 27, 1864, joining the 1st Battalion, Virginia Light Artillery. That unit had begun its service as an infantry company organized on April 24, 1861, by Dr. Edward K. Young. Young’s company soldiered in the 14th Virginia Infantry before transferring to the 1st Battalion, Virginia Light Artillery, on May 1, 1862. Lawrence’s brother, Robert B. Davis, was a first lieutenant in the battery.

Davis and his fellow artillerymen were posted in Battery No. 5 in the Dimmock Line, a series of earthworks protecting Petersburg. That stronghold became a focal point of the Union attacks on June 15, 1864, launched by portions of the Army of the Potomac and Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler’s Army of the James, including some regiments of U.S. Colored Troops. Union commander Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant hoped that the Federal assaults would capture the city while it was lightly defended, but after initial success, the Federal drive bogged down, leading to months of siege warfare. The following material, previously unpublished, is part of a history Lawrence Davis wrote in 1907 for his family, drawing from his memories of his part in the June 15 fighting. Paragraph breaks have been added for ease in reading.

…The battle at the Jordan House known as Battery No. 5, 5 miles east of Petersburg on the south side of the Appomattox River, fought on June 15, 1864.

This battery from Halifax Co., Va., had gone through the war, had never been in an engagement up to the summer of 1864. The officers & men actually had the blues, thinking the war would close without their having the ‘fun of fight but little did they know what was in store for them. On the day previous to the fight Lieut. Ferguson…who had charge of the only rifled piece belonging to the Battery, was ordered from battery No. 9 to Battery No. 5, which place we reached in the evening. Next morning just as we sat down to a breakfast of ham & eggs on a grassy plot in the northeast corner of Jordan’s yard, the roar of small arms commenced in the woods east of the house. We were all excited & very much exhilarated but this exalted feeling did not last long for soon our pickets were seen coming slowly over the hill & the yankee infantry was seen spreading out over the river bottom, & taking the ditches in single file. Then the stern reality burst upon us & a stern sense of duty dispelled the illusory rapture.

The battle continued all day, waxing fierce as the evening came on. And altho one of the hottest days ever experienced I heard no man speak of water or wanting anything to eat. About 10 o’clock in the morning there came a yankee staff emerging from the woods & galloping in all the pride & circumstance of war into Beasley’s house just a mile down the river. Capt. Sturdivant who was in command of the light guns ordered my Lieut. Ferguson to put a ball right into that Staff and as soon as the smoke cleared up we all stood out to see the effect of the shot. If any were killed we could not tell but such scampering into Beasley’s house you never saw.

Then Sturdivant says to Ferguson Put a ball through Beasley’s house. How far is it? Just a measured mile was the response. So we cut our fuse for that distance but the house being so completely shut in by a grove we could not see the effects of the shot. But that evening during a Lull in the fighting, Col. Jones who had command north of the river came over to see how we were holding out, and asked Capt. Sturdivant what gun it was, that put the ball through Beasley’s house? When told that it was Lt. Ferguson’s but that soon after he was shot down. He remarked that it was the most beautiful shot he had ever seen; That the ball passed right through the house & exploded in the back yard where the Yankees had been congregated all the morning. Lt. Ferguson was shot by a sharpshooter from a treetop. Capt. Sturdivant & myself were standing by him when shot & though of a ruddy complexion weighing 220 lb when struck he instantly turned deathly pale & commenced falling backward, when we caught him in our arms & eased him down. Our ambulances being sheltered under the hill, we carried him down & placed him in one and just at starting, he begged me to go with him to the hospital, as we were warm friends. But having no orders from my Capt. I had to deny him. Poor fellow, I afterwards heard that he died the third day, then the South lost one of its truest & best.

When reaching the top of the hill on my return to the Battery the bullets were flying so thick & fast that I jumped behind a big yellow pine. I stayed there until a pause came in the shooting. Finally I summoned up courage & ran facing the minnies from 70 or 80 yards all along the Battery. That was a time to try the soul. I have often thought since that if I knew the owner, I would say to him Spare that tree.

Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts

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