Service
The 46th was part of the Army of Northern Virginia from its initial muster through the end of the war, seeing action in the major eastern campaigns in Virginia and Maryland in 1862.
At Antietam, the 46th was involved in some of the heaviest fighting of the day. They had been ordered to hold West Woods, at "all hazards". According the Brig. General John George Walker's after-action report, the 46th "did good service". Joined to Ransom's Brigade, the regiment held the Woods "for the greater portion of the day, notwithstanding three determined infantry attacks, which each time were repulsed with great loss to the enemy, and against a most persistent and terrific artillery fire, by which the enemy hoped, doubtless, to drive us from our strong position — the very key of the battle-field."
After Fredericksburg, the 46th was shifted to garrison duty in South Carolina until June 1863, in that month being reassigned to northern Virginia. They returned north too late to participate in Gettysburg, but were back in the ranks of the ANV for the Bristoe Campaign of October, 1863.
The 46th finally surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.
Read more about this topic: 46th North Carolina Infantry
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The man of large and conspicuous public service in civil life must be content without the Presidency. Still more, the availability of a popular man in a doubtful State will secure him the prize in a close contest against the first statesman of the country whose State is safe.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)