The Battle of Fort Fisher, N.C.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Hangings in Kinston, NC-- Part 2

On Feb. 15, 1864, another 13 are hanged.  Six more are put on tial .  Two are sentenced to have the letter "D" for deserter branded on their left hip and sent to hard labor with ball and chain.  Another avoids the death penalty and is sentenced to hard labor for "extreme youth...physical disability and mental imbecility."  A fourth, William Clinton Cox is found not guilty because he was a railroad guard in the North Carolina Bridge Guard Company and technically never in the Confederate Army (he had also betrayed many of his fellow soldiers).

Two more receive death by hanging.  In all, Pickett has 22 hanged.  Their Union Army careers are cut short.  None lived 90 days past enlistment and none received the promised bounty for signing up og $300.

The remaining 31 prisoners captured at Batchelder's Creek end up in Confederate prisons in Richmond and Georgia.  Twenty-five die of disease and malnutrition within two months.  Three eventually receive a parole and three are accounted for.  The railroad guard dies of fever at Andersonville Prison in Georgia.

A Sad End to North Carolinians.  --Old Secesh

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