by Charly Mann

In 1906, forty years after the Civil War ended, the students of the University of North Carolina paid tribute to the hundreds of former students who gave their lives in what they termed the "Lost Cause" in the following statement:

We, the younger generation of Southern men, pledge those gallant men who fought with Jackson and Lee, alumni of our beloved U.N.C. in the name of the Lord God of Hosts, that we shall never forget those noble teachers in grey, our monitors in every high holy lesson for all ages that are to be.

$50 in North Carolina Confederate Money

Today many of us would like to forget UNC's support and huge contribution to the Confederacy. In the beginning of the war North Carolina was the most reluctant of the Southern states to leave the Union. Most of North Carolina's political leaders at the time of secession were UNC graduates, and they had much more national sentiment than their counterparts in the rest of the South. Most white people in North Carolina did not own slaves and were against slavery. More than a decade before, the majority of UNC students had agreed that slavery should be abolished. In the 1832 UNC commencement address, Judge William Gaston said that slavery was holding back the progress of the state and stated:

Disguise the truth as we may, and throw the blame where we will, it is Slavery which, more than any other cause, keeps us back in the career of improvement. It stifles industry and represses enterprise — it is fatal to economy and providence--it discourages skill — impairs our strength as a community, and poisons morals at the fountain head. How this evil is to be encountered, how subdued, is indeed a difficult and delicate enquiry, which this is not the time to examine, nor the occasion to discuss. I felt, however, that I could not discharge my duty, without referring to this subject, as one which ought to engage the prudence moderation and firmness of those who, sooner or later, must act decisively upon it.

James Allen Wright (1836-1862) was a captain in the Confederate Army. He was killed at the battle of Mechanicsville in June 1862.

Two former UNC students, William A. Graham, and William P. Mangum were among the most powerful politicians in North Carolina at the start of the Civil War and argued strongly to stay with the Union. Magnum even declared, "If I could coin my heart into gold, and it was lawful in the sight of Heaven, I would pray God give me the firmness to do it, to save the Union from the fearful, the dreadful shock which I verily believe impends."

North Carolina was also a state that was not heavily dependent on slavery for its economic well being. The preservation and extension of slavery into newly formed states was never an important issue in North Carolina politics. In February of 1961 when other Southern states began seceding North Carolina refused to secede.

Unfortunately Mangum's fears were justified, and when Abraham Lincoln issued a call for troops to put an end to the secession in April 1961, Governor John Ellis, also a UNC graduate, declared to the President, "You can get no troops from North Carolina." Zebulon Vance, another UNC graduate, who became a leader in the Confederate Army and for whom Vance Hall on the UNC campus is named, spoke for the majority of North Carolinians when he said: "If war must come, I prefer to be with my own people. If we must shed blood, I prefer to shed Northern rather than Southern blood." So when war did come to the South most former and current UNC students either fought for or served in positions of civil service for the Confederacy.

Bryan Grimes graduated from UNC in 1848. He was a major general in the Confederate Army

During the Civil War North Carolina had three Confederate governors, all UNC graduates. In the Congress of the Confederate States fourteen of its members were North Carolina alumni. Of all the living alumni and students of UNC from 1837 to 1865, more than 40% served in the Confederate Army. Among the officers in the Confederate Army with UNC degrees there was one lieutenant general, one major general, thirteen brigadier generals, 50 colonels, 28 lieutenant colonels, forty majors, forty-six adjutants, 71 surgeons, 251 captains, and 38 non-commissioned officers. To put these numbers in perspective this was from a total of 2200 men who had attended UNC between 1837 and 1861. No other non-military university gave such a high percent of its men to the war effort.

James Barr Andrews, UNC class of 1854, was a captain in the Confederate Army and died at the battle in Richmond on July 23, 1863

Among the distinguished causalities were Lieutenant I.M. Royster, class of 1860, who died leading his men at a charge at Gettysburg while singing "Dixie" with his men. Two days later, Colonel Issac E. Avery was mortally wounded on the third day of fighting at Gettysburg. He lived just long enough to write this note on an envelope on the battlefield, "Tell my father I died with my face to the foe."

Two of the four tablets on the wall of Memorial Hall listing UNC students who were killed in the Civil War

In the fighting UNC class of 1839, C.M. Avery, commanded a regiment at the battle of Chancellorsville in which 41% of his men were killed. 1848 graduate George B. Anderson was also a regiment commander and lost 54% of his men at Seven Pines, and 1844 alumnus R.H. Cowan lost 56% of the troops he commanded during the Seven Day's battle. Finally it was former UNC students Z.B. Vance and Harry K. Burgwyn who led Pettigrew's Brigade in Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. When the charge began they had 820 men. A few minutes later only 102 were still alive. To put this in perspective the 708 men killed in this one part of this great battle exceeded the total student enrollment at UNC in any year before the Civil War and well into the early 20th century. All the men these men commanded were from North Carolina.

Final two of the four tablets listing students who attended UNC and were killed in the Civil War 

In terms of UNC deaths the records show that at the first battle of Manassas there were four UNC deaths, at the Battle of Shiloh five, at Malvern Hill fourteen, at Sharpsburg nine, at Fredericksburg eight, at Chickamauga seven, the battle of the Wilderness six, Spotsylvania five, and in Atlanta nine. All told 312 men who attended UNC died in the Civil War.

The following two songs are an addendum to this article. The first is a version of Dixie performed much like it would have been during the Civil War. Next is a rare recording of James Taylor singing Hard Times, a song Stephen Foster wrote in 1854, and popular in the South in the 1860s and 70s because of the misery brought on from the Civil War.