About That 'First at Bethel, Farthest to the Front at Gettysburg and Last At Appomattox' Slogan-- Part 2: A Great Honor

According to the NCpedia this is a traditional  saying honoring the role of  North Carolina soldiers in the Civil War  Editor  Walter Clark, later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, encouraged its use as early as 1901

The initial three words "First at Bethel," holds double meaning.  The first regiment of North Carolina  Volunteers was instrumental in winning a Confederate victory at the Battle of Bethel, Virginia, on  10 June 1861, the first land battle of the war.  In this engagement,  Tarboro resident  Henry Lawson Wyatt, became the first Confederate soldier to die in the war.

During the Battle of Gettysburg, North Carolina soldiers advanced the  the greatest distance under the withering Union gunfire on July 3, 1863, in what became known as Pickett's Charge.  Some also credit the 58th North Carolina Regiment had the deepest penetration of enemy lines on Snodgrass Hill at the Battle of Chickamauga on  20 September 1863, although at least one historian contends that battle conditions made the claim impossible to substantiate.

Finally, the men of Company  D, 30th North Carolina Infantry Regiment, fired he last shots at Union forces at Appomattox on 9 April 1865, the day that Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to  Union General Ulysses S. Grant.

I might add now that this was also the death of Ivy (Ivey) Ritchie.

--Old Secesh