62nd North Carolina Infantry Regiment

The Sixty-second North Carolina Infantry Regiment was formed at Waynesville, North Carolina, on July 11, 1862, and was composed almost entirely of men from Western North Carolina. Its members were recruited in the counties of Jackson, Haywood, Clay, Macon, Rutherford, Henderson, and Transylvania. The field officers were Colonels George W. Clayton and Robert G. A. Love, and Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Gibbs McDowell. And they were descendants of Revolutionary War soldiers.
Colonel Robert Gustavus Adolphus Love, or R. G. A. Love, initially served as a Captain in the 16th North Carolina Infantry Regiment in the Army of Northern Virginia. When Captain Robert G. A. Love received his promotion to Colonel, he transferred to the 62nd North Carolina. (The city of Waynesville, N.C., was founded by Robert Love, an ancestor of R. G. A. Love.) Major, later Lieutenant Colonel, Bryan Gibbs McDowell was a native of Macon County. Early in 1861, he enlisted in the 39th North Carolina Regiment under Col. David Coleman and was transferred to the 62nd by promotion to Major of the Regiment on July 11, 1862.

The unit served in North Carolina and East Tennessee, and its service proved invaluable in the defense of the vital and strategic Saltworks and railroads. In July 1863 the unit was assigned to General Gracie's Brigade and stationed in the Cumberland Gap. Together, the 62nd, 64th, and 69th (Thomas' Legion) North Carolina Regiments fought the enemy in East Tennessee and in western North Carolina. In late December 1862, while guarding bridges and railroads in East Tennessee, three poorly armed companies (295 soldiers) of the 62nd Regiment were captured by a Union cavalry force of 3,000.  Subsequently, General John Wesley Frazer surrendered the regiment in the Cumberland Gap on September 9, 1863; however, an estimated 600 from various units evaded capture. The 62nd Regiment returned to the Asheville area and in April 1864 recorded 178 men. The records reflect at least 442 men of the 62nd were prisoners at Camp Douglas. And in O.R., i, 30, ii, pp. 636-637*, Major McDowell discusses the Cumberland Gap's surrender, with Jefferson Davis writing that Frazier's surrender "presents a shameful abandonment of duty." *Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies; hereinafter cited as O.R.

General Ulysses S. Grant, traveling through the Cumberland Gap in 1864 noted: "With two brigades of the Army of the Cumberland I could hold that pass against the army which Napoleon led to Moscow."

The 442 soldiers assigned to the 62nd were transferred to Camp Douglas, Illinois. Then, some of the soldiers were relocated to prisoner of war camps Rock Island, Illinois, and Camp Morton, Indiana. When the Cumberland Gap capitulated, nearly all the officers of the 62nd were captured; estimated at 24 officers. The officers, however, were segregated and imprisoned at Point Lookout, Maryland, and Johnson's Island, Ohio. Consequently, while the 62nd was interned at Camp Douglas an estimated forty-four percent of its soldiers died. On Union soil their bodies were placed in a mass grave known as "The Confederate Mound." The regiment's death toll at Camp Morton, Rock Island, Point Lookout and Johnson's Island is unknown. (See map and location of American Civil War Prisoner of War Camps.)

Major McDowell was the only 62nd field officer present during the "surrender of the Cumberland Gap." Furthermore, during the surrender, Colonel Love was ill and not present (North Carolina Standard, October 7, 1863), and Lt. Colonel Clayton had contracted typhoid fever and was in a hospital in Greeneville, TN. In January 1865, according to O.R., Series 3, Volume 4, p. 1037, imprisoned 62nd North Carolina soldiers were even offered pardons if they joined the Union Army. According to McDowell not one soldier from the 62nd accepted the offer.

The 62nd also fought very formidable bands of desperadoes, outlaws, deserters, bushwhackers, outliers, and escaped Union prisoners. Fighting bushwhackers was contrary to fighting an organized army. The Union and Confederate Armies applied Napoleonic Linear Tactics and typically marched into battle and fought. On the other hand, bushwhackers were "masters of the ambush" and wouldn't fight in a conventional manner. The bushwhackers' tactics enabled them to be a very formidable foe; many Confederates even preferred fighting Union soldiers. In early 1864, Captain B. T. Morris of the 64th North Carolina Infantry Regiment (Allen's Regiment) recorded that "While fighting bushwhackers, McDowell was shot through the arm." Also see hellish conditions in Western North Carolina: Shelton Laurel Massacre, O.R., Series IV, pt. 2, pp. 732-734, O.R., Series 1, Volume  53, pp. 324-336, O.R., Series 1, Vol. 32, pt. II, pp. 610-611.

It continued the "fight" under Generals Breckinridge (14th Vice President of the United States and cousin to Mary Todd Lincoln), Vaughn, and Williams in East Tennessee. In March 1865 the regiment was attached to Colonel J. B. Palmer's command at Asheville. Subsequently, the unit disbanded near the French Broad River.

The Sixty-second North Carolina Infantry Regiment was one of North Carolina's last regiments to surrender. The fragment of the regiment composed part of Palmer's Brigade at Asheville on March 10, 1865, and with General Martin it engaged and repelled Kirby's Brigade near Asheville on April 6, 1865.