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Brothers Henry J. and Levi Jasper Walker rushed to volunteer for the Confederate States Army on the very day that North Carolina seceded from the Union-May 20, 1861. They joined Company B (Ranaleburg Riflemen), Thirteenth Regiment North Carolina Troops (Third Regiment North Carolina Volunteers). In 1861 twenty-four-year-old Henry and nineteen-year-old Levi lived with their parents, Thomas Jefferson and Jane Walker, and three younger siblings, Rufus, Thomas, and Frances Walker. The Walkers were Presbyterians who resided in the Steele Creek area of northern Mecklenburg County. Before the war, Henry, Levi, and their father worked in a local woolen mill.
Because both Henry J. and Levi J. Walker rushed to volunteer for the Confederate army in May 1861, they were hardened veterans by the time each lost his left leg during the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, campaign in July 1863.
On July 1, as Levi carried the regimental flag during a charge on Federal lines at Seminary Ridge, he was shot in the left leg, making him the fifth flag bearer in his unit to fall that day. At a field hospital, doctors amputated his leg below the knee. Because of his wound, Levi was left behind as the Confederates retreated. He was captured and sent to the Federal prison hospital at Davids Island, New York. He was paroled and exchanged in October 1863, then assigned to the Invalid Corps on May 2, 1864.
Henry, who had become a third lieutenant, avoided injury at Gettysburg but was shot during a skirmish near Hagerstown, Maryland, on July 13, 1863, as the army retreated south. Henry also had his left leg amputated below the knee. He was captured and imprisoned at Johnson's Island, Ohio, until he was exchanged on May 8, 1864.
Both Walker brothers, missing their left legs from war wounds, returned to Mecklenburg County and began to rise in social status. Henry married Catherine E. Berryhill on June 23, 1864, shortly after his release from the Federal prison at Johnson's Island. He became a schoolteacher, living with his wife and children in the same community as his parents. At some point after 1870, Henry obtained a medical degree from New York Medical College (now part of Columbia University). He practiced medicine for more than forty years in Huntersville, Mecklenburg County, where he also owned a drug- and general merchandise store. He served as Mecklenburg County treasurer for several years. Henry and Catherine had seven children, five of whom survived until adulthood. Henry died at age ninety-three on November 15, 1928.
Shortly after the war ended, Levi married Lenora Montgomery. Before the wedding, Levi had an accident and broke his cork prosthetic leg. He borrowed his brother Henry's leg to stand on during the marriage ceremony. Levi became a merchant and lived with his wife and daughter in Charlotte's Fourth Ward area. At various times during his life, he owned a general store, a retail and wholesale grocery store, and a drugstore. Levi retired in 1897 and afterward lived with his daughter and her husband in the family home on Poplar Street.
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