Mystery Sword of the Carolinas Campaign

ECW welcomes back guest author Derrick S. Brown.

Have you ever had one of those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days? March 8, 1865, the first day of the battle of Wise’s Forks (interchangeably called Wyse Fork), was such a day for Lt. Col. Samuel Tolles and the 15th Connecticut.[1]

Tolles’ Nutmeggers had been ordered into an exposed position east of Kinston, North Carolina near Southwest Creek, a tributary of the Neuse River. The 15th was on the extreme left flank of Maj. Gen. Jacob D. Cox’s small army as it sluggishly advanced westward from New Bern. The deliberate pace of the march was not due to negligence or idleness on the part of the Federals; instead it arose from the necessity of repairing the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad to supply Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman’s command once it moved into eastern North Carolina.

The modest size and glacial pace of Cox’s force seemingly made it a ripe target for the small mish-mashed Confederate armies coalescing in the Tar Heel State. Surprisingly, the Union advance had thus far been unopposed. Consequently, newly minted brigade commander Col. Charles Upham didn’t order Tolles to entrench on the evening of March 7, despite the vulnerable nature of his position. Perhaps Sherman’s impending arrival in North Carolina had diverted Confederate attention to the south, turning the advance from New Bern into a cakewalk.

Unbeknownst to Tolles, Upham, and Cox, Maj. Gen. Robert F. Hoke’s Division of Army of Northern Virginia veterans was poised on the opposite side of Southwest Creek, prepared to shatter any expectations of a bloodless campaign for the Federals.^[2]

With over 3,000 men, Hoke’s Division was large by 1865 Confederate standards. These Carolinians and Georgians were reinforced by Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill, who commanded a small Army of Tennessee division and some North Carolina reservists. The combined force was commanded by Gen. Braxton Bragg. Despite this handicap, the 6,000 Confederates easily drove in the left flank of Cox’s command on March 8.^[3]

The 15th Connecticut and the 27th Massachusetts bore the brunt of the afternoon attack by Hoke’s Division. The bulk of these two regiments surrendered en masse, but some, like Tolles and Upham, attempted escape. Upham miraculously made it to safety, but Tolles’ flight was cut short when he unwittingly retreated into Hill’s lines. To add insult to injury, Tolles’ beautiful presentation sword, a gift from his men, was either lost or surrendered to his captors. Nearly 800 U.S. soldiers surrendered on March 8, making it one of the last mass Union surrenders of the Civil War. Instead of rendezvousing with Sherman in Goldsboro, Tolles and his men traveled much further – all the way to Richmond’s infamous Libby Prison.^[4]

The 15th Connecticut Regiment, Infantry, mustered in response to President Abraham Lincoln’s July 2, 1862 call for “300,000 more” and the subsequent Militia Act. By mid-August they were ready to head south, but a procurement delay for their “iron-clad life preservers” prevented their departure.

The wait for body armor allowed time for the presentation of swords and horses to the field officers of the unit. Tolles’ sword was awarded to him on August 20 by the Veteran Grays, a pre-war militia unit that formed the basis for one of the regiment’s companies. Deciding that they would rather take their chances with Confederate bullets than continue to lug the heavy chainmail, the soldiers discarded their armor in a creek before joining the Army of the Potomac in time to fight in the battle of Fredericksburg. The December 1862 battle was the 15th’s only major engagement until Wise’s Forks.^[5]

The regiment that deployed to North Carolina was in many ways not the same unit that had left New Haven in 1862. Attrition from disease, expired enlistments, and modest battlefield casualties forced authorities to reinforce the regiment with hundreds of new recruits. By 1865, there were so many new soldiers that the 15th was split into separate commands. Tolles led the regiment’s right wing at Wise’s Forks, which was the first and only battle for many of his men.^[6]

Upham’s 900-man brigade was deployed in an arguably indefensible location to begin with, but the situation was exacerbated by their failure to fortify this position. Almost the entirety of both wings and the small 27th Massachusetts were captured – either overrun by Hoke or driven into Hill’s command. For all intents and purposes the 15th Connecticut was wiped completely from Federal muster rolls on March 8, 1865.^[7]

The exact circumstances of Tolles’ surrender remain unclear. However, it is logical to think he surrendered his sword to his captors, providing some unknown gray-clad officer or even an enterprising enlisted man a souvenir. At this point the sword was lost to history until it mysteriously resurfaced in 1902, 50 miles west of Wise’s Forks, at the Harper house on the Bentonville battlefield. During the March 19-21 battle of Bentonville, the Harpers’ home served as a Union field hospital. Additionally, in the battle’s aftermath, scores of wounded Confederates were cared for by the Harpers.

There is much speculation about how and when the sword made its way to Bentonville, but the blade’s original ownership can’t be disputed. After all, an engraving on the pommel reads “Presented to Lt Col Saml Tolles by the Veteran Grays and Citizens New Haven Aug 20th, 1862.” The inscription allowed Bentonville-area politician and Confederate veteran of the battle, Charles S. Powell, to make an unsuccessful attempt to return the sword when it was shown to him in 1902 – likely the year it was recovered from the battlefield. Tolles’ 1889 death prevented a reunion with his sword, but what befuddled Powell was that no one in Connecticut seemed to want the weapon whatsoever.^[8]

The sword’s next appearance in the historical record is in 1919, when the Harper house was purchased by the Remus Dunn family. By this point the sword was in a US Model 1860 Light Cavalry Sabre scabbard, with the bottom third of this scabbard missing. This was obviously not the brass trimmed sheath originally designed for the weapon. Fortunately, the sword was now stored inside, but it had clearly spent many years outdoors. Its missing hand grip and rusty blade indicate that it had previously been a battlefield relic, but a relic of which battle?

It is possible that Tolles simply dropped his blade from the original scabbard in the desperate attempt at escape on March 8, keeping his scabbard, but losing the sword. Did a Confederate put the captured sword in a random scabbard? A Southerner had to be responsible for the sword’s journey to Bentonville, because no U.S. regiments fought at both Wise’s Forks and Bentonville, but nearly every Confederate unit did. It makes the most sense to say that Tolles surrendered the sword to his Army of Tennessee captors, but this is only speculation.^[9]

It is curious that the sword was found by the Dunns in the Harper house. Dozens of Army of Tennessee soldiers were treated by Federal surgeons at the XIV Corps field hospital in and around the home. Most of these Confederates were paroled and left with the Harper family in the battle’s aftermath. It is possible that the sword was carried by one of these men and held onto by the Harpers. However, this hypothesis seems unlikely due to the sword’s poor condition. It was obviously outside for many years.^[10]

We are left with more questions than answers. Was the Confederate who carried Tolles’ sword west to Bentonville a casualty of that battle? Or did the hypothetical Southerner decide he didn’t need the sword after all during a precipitous retreat – tossing it down to be recovered four decades later? What area of Bentonville battlefield was the sword found in, when, and by whom?

Thanks to the Dunn family the wandering mystery sword has finally found a permanent home. The Dunns realized what a precious keepsake the blade was, passing it down from generation to generation until the last owners offered it to Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site. The Friends of Bentonville Battlefield Inc. are now the owners of the sword, which is part of the permanent exhibits in Bentonville’s visitor center.

Derrick S. Brown is the operations manager at the Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site.

Endnotes:

[1] The U.S. War Department’s official spelling for the March 7-10 engagement east of Kinston, N.C. is Wise’s Forks as reflected in the War of the Rebellion series. For that reason, Carolinas Campaign historians Dr. Mark Bradley, Wade Sokolosky, Mark Smith, and others have adopted this spelling. I have as well in this article to remain consistent. There are several other spellings, with Wyse Fork also used.

[2] For the definitive work on the battle of Wise’s Forks see Wade Sokolosky and Mark A. Smith, “To Prepare for Sherman’s Coming:” The Battle of Wise’s Forks, March 1865 (El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2015); Upham was the 15th’s former commander, thus his headquarters was nearby.

[3] Mark L. Bradley, Last Stand in the Carolinas: The Battle of Bentonville (Campbell, CA: Savas Woodbury, 1996), 74-75.

[4] The War of Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Volume 47, Part I (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1897), 932. Hereafter cited as ORA; Sokolosky and Smith, 109; Sheldon B. Thorpe, The History of the Fifteenth Connecticut Volunteers in the War for the Defense of the Union, 1861-1865 (New Haven: The Price Lee and Adkins Company, 1893), 122.

[5] Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion (Des Moines: Dyer Publishing Company, 1908), 1013; Thorpe, 15; “War and Military Items,” Hartford Courant, August 23, 1862.

[6] Thorpe, 110.

[7] ORA, Series 1, Volume 47, Part I, 989; Thorpe, 114.

[8] “Col. Tolles’ Sword,” Hartford Courant, October 10, 1902; “Obituary Notes,” The Morning Journal and Courier [New Haven, Connecticut], January 14, 1889.

[9] Bradley, 227, 426-447; Sokolosky and Smith, 225-234.

[10] M.H. Bizzell, “The Last to Fall,” The Goldsboro Daily Argus, June 3, 1894.