By: Ethan Tomlinson, January 1, 2025
[Some additional materials and assistance provided by Judkin Browning]
Declarations of war often inspire visions of glory that lead young, militarily-inexperienced men to enthusiastically enlist in a spirit of martial excitement. Many young men in North Carolina became swept up in the enlistment frenzy in the spring of 1861 as the state seceded from the Union, joined the Confederacy, and prepared for war. Unlike many of his counterparts, Moore County’s Isaac Thompson was far more circumspect and was not seduced by the siren call of secession. Instead, Thompson would demonstrate and declare several times over the next four years that he was more interested in the well-being of his family rather than his country.
Isaac was born the youngest of seven children on November 16, 1832 in Crain’s Creek, Moore County, North Carolina. Now virtually non-existent, Crain’s Creek was a thriving community with a school, a church, a wagon factory, and a physician at the time of Isaac’s birth.[1] Isaac’s father, Jesse, an itinerant minister originally from Wayne County, North Carolina, moved to Moore County after marrying his second wife, Louisa Grant. Upon moving to Moore County, the Thompson family lived in a primitive “brush shelter,” and spent nights “fighting the biggest mosquitoes that they had ever seen.” Jesse was known as an industrious and pious man in the community, and quickly became a major landowner as well as a Methodist minister. At his height, Jesse came to own 1314 acres of land as well as 7 slaves that ranged from infancy to middle age. The Thompson farm produced tobacco, sweet potatoes and butter, but primarily specialized in corn and hogs. Isaac received some education during his youth, but the bulk of his time was spent laboring on the farm along with his siblings.[2]
As Isaac aged into adulthood, he continued to work on his father’s farm and eventually married Catherine Johnson in 1853 at the age of 21. At some time after his marriage, Isaac and his new bride moved to a farm in neighboring Harnett County, which they quickly populated with new laborers. Catherine gave birth to William (1854), Perasina (1856), Ruth (1859) and John (1861). At some point in 1860, Jesse gave 27-year-old Isaac 88 ¼ acres of land from his estate to begin his own farm, perhaps to entice his son to come back to Moore County. On August 21, 1860, the census taker recorded Isaac and his family living in neighboring Harnett County, in Summerville, just outside what is now the town of Lillington. But later censuses show Isaac living in Moore County, probably on the land bequeathed to him by Jesse.[3]
As the war broke out in April 1861, and North Carolina seceded from the Union in May, Isaac did not enlist in the army like so many other young men. Perhaps he was distracted by the failing health of his father (who died on June 30, 1861) or the dependency of his young family. Instead, Isaac decided to prioritize his land and his family and withstand the war to the best of his abilities. Despite this initial lack of enlistment enthusiasm, Isaac had a change of heart a year later, and decided to volunteer into Company H of the 46th North Carolina Infantry on April 15, 1862. We may never know exactly why Isaac changed his mind and decided to join the war effort, but his later actions suggest it was not driven by a sudden spirit of patriotism. It was common knowledge that the Confederate government was contemplating a Conscription Act, as the North Carolina Standard and Fayetteville Observer had been carrying articles for weeks on the impending legislation. The Confederate Congress passed a Conscription Act on April 16, 1862, requiring all men between the ages of 18 and 35 to serve in the army for three years. It is likely that Isaac saw what was coming and decided to volunteer before he was compelled into service, because as a volunteer he could at least control where he went. The 46th North Carolina had been formed at Camp Mangum in Raleigh on April 3, and Company H, known as the “Moore Guards,” was composed almost entirely of Moore County men. Joining a unit of his neighbors likely brought Thompson some comfort and familiarity. He enlisted in the regiment at the home of the Company’s Captain, Neill McNeill. Isaac soon regretted his decision and did whatever possible to return home.[4]
Isaac and his fellow “Moore Guards” soon found themselves embroiled in one of the most important and grueling campaigns of the war, the Peninsula Campaign. Arriving in Richmond on June 1, 1862, the 46th Regiment was placed in General John G. Walker’s brigade, which was assigned to General Benjamin Huger’s division. As part of the division, Thompson and his comrades managed to avoid the most serious combat of the Seven Days’ Battles, in which General Robert E. Lee attempted to drive the Union forces away from Richmond. Thompson’s unit was near enough to hear the heavy fighting, but were only uncomfortably close to artillery fire and a naval bombardment at Malvern Hill on July 1. Though the 46th North Carolina suffered no casualties in the campaign, they witnessed its horrific toll, as approximately 20,000 Confederate soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured during the seven days. This first first exposure to war clearly had an impact on Isaac, as he deserted on July 18, 1862, only 17 days after the battle of Malvern Hill.
The methods by which Isaac made his way from Richmond to Moore County are unknown. One can only speculate on Isaac’s thoughts as he made his way home through the North Carolina piedmont. Eventually, Isaac arrived back to Catherine and his four children. While the full extent of the economic troubles that would plague the Confederacy throughout the war had not come to fruition yet, the inflation rate was still more than 100% annually throughout the new nation's existence. Life for the Thompsons, like nearly everyone at the time, was exceedingly difficult. It was made even more so by the continuing additions to the family; Catherine gave birth to Isaac Archibald Thompson on June 16, 1863. Conveniently (and no doubt much more pleasurably), Isaac conceived his son while missing the bloody Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. Many of his comrades in the 46th North Carolina had collapsed from exhaustion on the march to Antietam. Five men were killed and 60 wounded at the battle.
As 1863 rolled around, Isaac’s situation became ever more precarious. Given all of the home guard, militia, and cavalry patrols in the county looking for deserters, he had become wary of remaining at home, and decided to return to his unit. He wrote Governor Zebulon Vance in late 1862 seeking a pass to return safely, and he received one, but as his wife vaguely stated, he was “delayed longer than he ought to have been by circumstances over which he had no control.” He was captured by Confederate authorities at the turn of the new year and forcibly returned to his unit. Upon his arrest, Catherine frantically took her pen in hand on January 5, 1863, to write to Governor Vance, pleading for his life. She first built up an exculpatory case to explain Isaac’s actions, claiming that he had been “badly treated” by company officers, and “persuaded by professed friends” to desert with them. But she averred that her husband had “repented of his crime” and so had written the governor for amnesty. Toward the end of her letter, Catherine masterfully used pathos to advocate for her husband’s safe passage by stating that “I would a thousand times rather he were in the service fighting for his country than to be at home as a deserter. But should he be executed for a crime for which others are more to blame than he, it will bring me to the grave in sorrow and cast an everlasting stigma upon his innocent children.” Vance declared that he had no power in the case since Isaac was a captured deserter, but Isaac avoided any serious punishment. Perhaps he showed his expired pass from Vance to his officers and was given the benefit of the doubt, especially due to the unit’s need for soldiers. Isaac had once again become part of the 46th North Carolina by February 1863.[5]
The 46th North Carolina spent most of the first half of 1863 in coastal South Carolina, fighting off swarms of bugs, contending with poor rations, and keeping an eye on Union forces stationed along the coastal islands below Charleston. After fighting some minor skirmishes, the regiment was recalled to Richmond, but did not join the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia as it headed north in the campaign that culminated in the Battle of Gettysburg. It was during this particular period of malaise, while stationed outside of Richmond, that Isaac wrote to his close friend Neill G. Cameron. In this letter, Isaac reflected on his service in the war, admitting, “I have been through enough to kill a man.” He asserted that when he came back from desertion, “I thought starvation would have ended [the war] before now yet it is not so, the end looks farther off than it did.” He complained about the wickedness of the Confederate leaders, channeling his Methodist minister father to suggest “that God will crush them for their deeds.” Isaac confessed his lack of patriotism and said that it was shared by many: “I believe that all the soldiers nearly in the Confederacy is for peace.” He also admitted his despondency with the war: “I believe myself it would be better to be subjugated and quit now than to fight on two years longer and gain our independence. For before that time starvation will visit our land with great destruction.” Isaac declared that he valued his family over the nascent Southern country: “if my family has to suffer and die for want of something to eat what good would it do me to gain independence? For if I fight at all let me fight for my family’s rights.”[6]
Isaac also wrote about witnessing the execution of a deserter from his unit in Petersburg, Virginia. “One of our men was shot near Petersburg as we came in here,” he wrote. A court martial had sentenced him to be shot “for running away five times.” “He was shot in less than a hundred yards of me,” Isaac reported. “When they fired upon him he fell instantly, crying out ‘Lord have mercy’ and died without a struggle or groan.” For someone who had already deserted once, Isaac betrayed no indication that he feared such a fate for himself, though given his despondent thoughts, he likely was contemplating deserting again. Two other soldiers of the 46th North Carolina would be executed in Richmond on July 18, 1863 for desertion as well. But these draconian punishments did not have as much of a deterrent effect as military authorities hoped.[7]
Often deserters are thought to be mostly poor Southerners with little care for the continuance of slavery. Yet Isaac, a modest landowner who had grown up on a slave-owning farm and benefitted from hiring out slaves from his father’s estate for work on his own farm, recognized the horrors of war and believed full Yankee control to be preferable to what he witnessed. “I am a southern man with southern principals,” he had written to Cameron in June 1863, “yet I’m not in favor of fighting until we are worse off than we would be to be subjugated.”[8]
Sometime during the late summer or early fall, Isaac decided once again to leave his unit. We don’t know the exact date, but he missed the 46th North Carolina’s next fight. On October 9, the Army of Northern Virginia again headed north in an effort to meet Union General George Meade’s Army of the Potomac near Manassas. On October 14, the two forces met at Bristoe Station, a railroad junction just west of Manassas. The battle would be an embarrassing defeat for the Confederate army. The 46th North Carolina participated in an ill-fated attack and suffered 60 casualties in a bloody repulse. But once again, Isaac Thompson was not in the firing line; he had returned home for a second time without authorization. After being at home for several weeks, Isaac wrote once again to Governor Vance, on October 29, 1863, seeking a pardon. Isaac informed the governor that he absconded from his unit because his family was “destitute of the necisarys [sic] of life.” Echoing his letter to Neill Cameron that summer, Isaac declared, “When I volunteered it was to fight for the protection of my family and when I left the army I thought if my family had to perish what profit would it be for me to fight?” But after having been home and offering what help he could, he sought to return, informing Vance that his wife would be willing “to live on bread alone” if he were to be pardoned.[9] The governor did not respond to this letter, and many months passed with no action while Isaac remained hidden at home. In the course of the spring and summer of 1864, he was in Moore County while his comrades in the 46th North Carolina endured the grueling, bloody slog of the Overland Campaign, suffering heavy casualties at places like the Wilderness (where 54% of the 540 men in the 46th North Carolina became casualties), Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. Isaac eventually returned to the army on September 20, 1864. He took advantage of the Confederate army's desperation to regain its many missing soldiers. General Robert E. Lee issued orders on August 10, 1864 pardoning deserters who returned immediately to their units, and Governor Vance issued an amnesty proclamation for deserters two weeks later. Isaac embraced this opportunity to avoid punishment, and once again, he returned to his unit and was forgiven.[10]
Isaac joined the regiment at Petersburg, Virginia, as the long and multifaceted siege of that city was had been underway for three months. Petersburg was the last line of defense between Richmond and the Union army, as well as a vital railroad junction along the Confederate supply line. For these reasons, the Union army spent 292 painstaking days attempting to take it, and the Confederate army reciprocated by doing everything within its power to ensure that Petersburg did not fall. Much of Isaac’s time was spent patrolling and guarding against a potential attack while in winter quarters. On February 5, 1865, Isaac finally saw some limited combat as the 46th North Carolina engaged with the Union army south of Petersburg at Hatcher’s Run, a fairly minor battle resulting in 1,000 total casualties. While Isaac was not included among those losses, less than 2 months later on March 31, he was captured near the site of the battle by Union forces. He was sent to Point Lookout, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay as a prisoner of war. Point Lookout saw the deaths of 4,000 prisoners between its opening in 1863 and the end of the war in 1865. Many of the prison guards were African Americans, some of whom likely guarded their former masters. Undoubtedly, Isaac was not thrilled by either the prison or its guards, but as he had stated nearly two years earlier, he would rather be subjugated by Yankees than continue to fight the war. He eventually got his wish.
The 46th North Carolina would be among the troops that surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the war. It was yet another key moment in the regiment’s history that Isaac missed. On June 21, 1865, Isaac was released from prison after taking the oath of allegiance to the Union. He returned home to Moore County. He and Catherine would have four more children, while Isaac continued to tend to his farm and his family in the decades following the war, which is exactly what he so strongly desired during the conflict. Isaac died on February 15, 1927, of heart problems at the age of 94 in Crain’s Creek, North Carolina, after 71 years of marriage. Catherine died only four months later. Together they had 10 children, 27 grandchildren, and over 100 great grand-children.
Ironically, Isaac was celebrated as a Confederate veteran, despite the fact that he deserted twice and spent two and half years avoiding service in the army. In an obituary, the Winston-Salem Journal noted that Thompson “offered his services and his life to the cause of the Confederacy and followed Lee and Jackson until the surrender at Appomattox in 1865, going through the entire war without a wound.” What the obituary writer did not know was that because of his desertions and long absences, Isaac managed to miss most of the major campaigns of the war. The reporter also was unaware of Isaac’s June 1863 letter denouncing Confederate leaders and wishing the South would be subjugated just so that the war would end. Likewise, the journalist did not know of the pleading letters that both Isaac and his wife wrote to Governor Vance to try to gain him multiple pardons. White readers in the segregated Jim Crow South of 1927 no longer cared about those details; they only cared that here was a man who wore the Confederate uniform, emerged from the war unscathed, and lived a long and fruitful life. Isaac Thompson appeared to live the white southern romantic dream for all of Lee’s soldiers.[11]
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[1] Catherine Shields Melvin, “Crane Creek Settlement was Once a Thriving Moore Area,” Moore County News. June 5, 1974, in Kathryn Blevins Carter, comp., Thompson: A Family History, p. 62 [found at https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/records/item/149990-redirect, accessed December 20, 2024].
[2] Carter, comp., Thompson: A Family History, pp. 63-69 (quotes on p. 63).
[4] Louis H. Manarin and Weymouth B. Jordan, Jr., comps., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, Volume XI (Raleigh: North Carolina Office of Archives and History, 1987), 129, 208.
[5] Catherine E. Thompson to Zebulon B. Vance, January 5, 1863, Governors Papers, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[6] Isaac Thompson to A.J.F. Cameron, June 20, 1863, in Carter, comp., Thompson: A Family History, p. 167-169. The compiler records that this letter was originally printed in The Sanford Herald newspaper in the 1930s. The family member who loaned the letter to the newspaper, Mrs. Roberta Cameron Waddell, claimed that the addressee was actually N.G. Cameron, despite the address of the letter.
[7] Isaac to Thompson to A.J.F. Cameron, June 20 1863. J. Franklin Havner and Josiah Rich, both of Company B, 46th North Carolina, were executed on July 18, 1863. See Comprehensive North Carolina Confederate Deserters Database, on this website.
[8] Isaac Thompson to A.J.F. Cameron, June 20, 1863, in Carter, comp., Thompson: A Family History, p. 167-169.
[9] Isaac Thompson to Zebulon Vance, October 29, 1863, Governors Papers, SANC.
[10] See North Carolina Standard, August 26, 1864.
[11] “Confederate Veteran Dead,” Winston-Salem Journal, February 16, 1927.
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