Nathaniel Greene Rich

Nathaniel Greene Rich

Company H, 63rd Regiment N.C. Troops (5th Regiment N.C. Cavalry)

In 1861, Nathaniel Greene Rich resided with his wife and four small children on a modest farm in Davie County, North Carolina, circumstances that doubtless made him reluctant to join the early rush of volunteers. However, conditions were much different after a year of war. In fact, the Confederate conscription law of April 1862 made all men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five liable for three years of military service.

Attempting to avoid outright conscription, some men enlisted under a separate law, the Partisan Ranger Act (also of April 1862), which authorized the recruitment of companies, almost always mounted, to engage in irregular warfare. These units were short-lived though, as very few such companies were permitted by Confederate military authorities to engage in irregular or guerilla activities, and within a few months those raised as partisan rangers were incorporated into ordinary cavalry regiments.

In Davie County, a partisan ranger company was raised by a Mocksville business man named William E. Booe, and so William Greene Rich enlisted as a private in that command on July 8, 1862.

“Booe’s Partisan Rangers” left their native county in August for Greensboro, under orders to join an ad hoc battalion commanded by Major Robert White. From Greensboro, White’s Battalion was ordered in early September to a camp of instruction at Garysburg, Northampton County. In October, the battalion combined with other cavalry units to create the 63rd Regiment N.C. Troops, also known as the 5th Regiment N.C. Cavalry.

In late 1862, several companies of the 5th N.C. Cavalry dispersed throughout eastern North Carolina on scouting and outpost duty. Booe’s command, now known as Company H, traversed much of eastern North Carolina through early 1863, including expeditions to Martin, New Hanover, Lenoir, Greene, and Bertie counties. In the spring of 1863, Company H rejoined the regiment at Garysburg and in May the 5th N.C. Cavalry received orders to join the Army of Northern Virginia. From then until the end of the war, the regiment formed a part of the famed North Carolina Cavalry Brigade in J.E.B. Stuart’s Cavalry Corps.

Nathaniel Greene Rich was present or accounted for until he received a gunshot wound in the right foot on August 21, 1864, during the Confederate action to retake the Weldon Railroad. Rich was admitted to a Petersburg hospital on September 6, but transferred to the hospital at Danville to convalesce on September 30. From Danville, Rich was granted a sixty-day furlough, following which there are no further Confederate records for him. However, Rich’s name appears on an undated list of paroled prisoners of war at Salisbury, North Carolina, indicating that he likely either never returned to duty or avoided the surrender at Appomattox Court House (as did many of Lee’s cavalrymen).

After the war, Rich and his family left Davie County, eventually settling in McDowell County. Nathaniel Greene Rich died on June 26, 1898, and is buried at the Oak Grove Cemetery in Marion.

In this 1/6th plate ambrotype, Rich appears in a Richmond Depot type II jacket, likely made of English Army Cloth, and issued between 1863-1864. Of note, even though the buttons are gold gilded, a closer examination show they are actually the wooden coat buttons utilized by the Richmond Clothing Bureau.

Unknown Photographer

National Archives M270, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers; Clark, Histories of the North Carolina Regiments; Manarin and Jordan, North Carolina Troops; U.S. Federal Census records for 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880; cemetery records of Oak Grove Cemetery, Marion, North Carolina.

Greg Mast Collection

1/6th plate Ambrotype