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John Thomas Jones was a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of North Carolina when the secession crisis came in 1861. He grew up in a Caldwell County slaveholding family that got its wealth by growing wheat and corn as cash crops on a 2,720-acre plantation. Jones, an Episcopalian, was known in the community as Knock because of the way he often settled disputes. John's father, Edmund W. Jones, was a pro-Union delegate to the state secession convention. John sent letters home from the university trying to convince his father to support North Carolina's secession movement and the formation of the Confederacy. Before the state seceded, John joined the Orange Light Infantry Company as a private on April 6, 1861. His company was assigned to the First Regiment North Carolina Volunteers and in June fought at the Battle of Bethel in Virginia.
John Thomas Jones transferred to the Twenty-sixth Regiment North Carolina Troops in July 1861 and became a major in 1862. In May 1863, the regiment left North Carolina to join the Army of Northern Virginia. During the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1, the regiment was nearly destroyed. Jones was wounded but refused to leave his men. As the regiment's only remaining officer, he was placed in command. On July 3, Jones led the regiment in the last unsuccessful charge, when he suffered a second wound. His younger brother Walter Jones was mortally wounded at Gettysburg and left behind when the army retreated, to await capture and death. Shaken but not demoralized, John Thomas Jones recovered from his wounds and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. As 1863 ended, he felt confident that General Robert E. Lee's army would ultimately win the war.
John Thomas Jones was mortally wounded while commanding his regiment during the Battle of the Wilderness on May 6, 1864. He died the next morning. A telegram with the sad news reached his father, Edmund W. Jones, in Caldwell County. In response, sixteen-year-old Edmund Jones Jr., the youngest son, left his studies at the University of North Carolina and enlisted in the army. He was reported killed in April 1865 but arrived home in May unharmed. All four sons of Edmund W. Jones served in the war, and two were killed. Eventually he managed to retrieve the bodies of those two and bring them home. With Confederate defeat, the Joneses lost their slaves and most of their wealth, but Edmund W. Jones saved the farm. On August 8, 1865, he received a pardon from President Andrew Johnson for his role as a secession delegate and his support of the Confederacy.
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