26th North Carolina Infantry Regiment

[3] After seceding, then North Carolina Adjutant General John Hoke called for 30,000 troops to be recruited to support the Confederacy in the war.

[3] Congressman Zebulon Baird Vance initially supported the Union but after hearing of the attacks on Fort Sumter, he then advocated for the Confederacy.

[3] Nine more companies followed suit with soldiers coming from the following counties in North Carolina: Ashe, Union, Wilkes, Wake, Chatham, Caldwell, and Anson.

The regiment was raised in 1861 from central and western North Carolina, with Zebulon B. Vance as its first colonel.

Vance was elected Governor of North Carolina in 1862 and command of the unit passed to 20-year-old Col. Henry King Burgwyn, Jr.

[4] In 1863, it marched northwards and became attached to General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia where they were given the distinction of being not only the largest, but the best trained regiment present.

Pettrigrew and the surviving officers worked to bring men not severely wounded back into the ranks.

[7] On the last day of the battle, the 26th were chosen to take part in the Pettigrew/Pickett's Charge on Cemetery Ridge, it was second from the left in the brigade's line.

Henry King Burgwyn, Jr. , one of the youngest colonels of the American Civil War [ 1 ] who died at the age of twenty-one at the Battle of Gettysburg
The 26th North Carolina Regimental Band. As it appears, from left to right: S. T. Mickey, A. P. Gibson, J. O. Hall, W. H. Hall, A. L. Hauser, D. T. Crouse, J. A. Leinbach, and James M. Fisher. [ 2 ]
Confederate veteran Colonel John Randolph Lane of Field and Staff, 26th North Carolina Infantry Regiment. From the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress