First Sergeant Leander Query
Dublin Core
Title
First Sergeant Leander Query
Subject
Company H (the "Mecklenburg Farmers"), 35th Regiment N.C. Troops
Description
Leander “Lee” Query farmed with his parents and siblings in the Eastern District of Mecklenburg County. He enlisted on September 3, 1861, in the aptly named “Mecklenburg Farmers,” subsequently Company H, 35th Regiment N.C. Troops. When the “Farmers” mustered into service at Camp Ellis near Raleigh on the following September 27, Query held the rank of corporal. He was promoted to sergeant and first sergeant between May 1862 and June 1864. (No muster rolls for Company H are extant for that period, making it impossible to determine the dates of his promotions.)
A regimental return of October 1862 reports that Query was absent sick and wounded. The date and place of his wounding was not specified, but it was probably the Battle of Sharpsburg, September 17, 1862, in which the 35th North Carolina suffered thirty-two casualties, including nine men killed or mortally wounded in action, and nineteen men wounded.
On June 17, 1864, the 35th North Carolina, part of a Confederate force outnumbered more than five to one, occupied trenches on the outskirts of Petersburg, Virginia. In an unexpected maneuver, the Army of the Potomac had eluded contact with the Army of Northern Virginia southeast of Richmond, and crossing to the south side of the James River on June 14, was driving on Petersburg from the east. General P.G.T. Beauregard assembled a makeshift force (including General Matt Ransom’s Brigade, to which the 35th North Carolina belonged) and tried to hold Petersburg until the arrival of reinforcements from Lee. At dark on the seventeenth the Federals succeeded in gaining a horseshoe-shaped lodgment within the Confederate lines. Ransom’s Brigade counterattacked. The 35th North Carolina, more than five hundred men strong, advanced in the dark, storming the parapets and fighting the enemy hand-to-hand.
The intensity of this little-known struggle is said to have matched that of the cauldrons of Sharpsburg and Spotsylvania. The colonel of the 35th was killed and the regimental colors lost, but the men captured three enemy flags. Victory was guaranteed only when a stentorian captain ordered up a regiment of imaginary reinforcements, and several hundred of the enemy surrendered. Ransom’s Brigade suffered about 450 casualties in the audacious charge, including more than 150 from the 35th North Carolina. One of them was First Sergeant Query, who was shot in the right arm.
On June 18 Query was transferred to the Confederate General Hospital at Kittrell Springs, Granville County, North Carolina (present day Vance County). He remained there at least through July 6. There are no further records for him until Company H’s muster roll for November-December 1864, which reports him at home on sick furlough. He was admitted to a Confederate Hospital at Charlotte on December 28, suffering from chronic diarrhea, but returned to duty on January 5, 1865. Query was reported present on the January-February 1865 muster roll of Company H.
Based upon casualties sustained during the period March 25-April 9, 1865, the 35th North Carolina probably numbered between 400-500 men present for duty in March 1865. However, serious losses were sustained in the failed assault on Fort Stedman on March 25 (about 100 men) and at Five Forks on April 1 (nearly 190 men captured). A remnant of only 116 men surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9.
One of the Five Forks prisoners was First Sergeant Query. He was imprisoned at Hart’s Island, New York Harbor, until June 19, 1865, when he was released after taking the Oath of Allegiance.
Leander Query (July 19, 1839-May 13, 1907) is buried at Mallard Creek Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Mecklenburg County.
A regimental return of October 1862 reports that Query was absent sick and wounded. The date and place of his wounding was not specified, but it was probably the Battle of Sharpsburg, September 17, 1862, in which the 35th North Carolina suffered thirty-two casualties, including nine men killed or mortally wounded in action, and nineteen men wounded.
On June 17, 1864, the 35th North Carolina, part of a Confederate force outnumbered more than five to one, occupied trenches on the outskirts of Petersburg, Virginia. In an unexpected maneuver, the Army of the Potomac had eluded contact with the Army of Northern Virginia southeast of Richmond, and crossing to the south side of the James River on June 14, was driving on Petersburg from the east. General P.G.T. Beauregard assembled a makeshift force (including General Matt Ransom’s Brigade, to which the 35th North Carolina belonged) and tried to hold Petersburg until the arrival of reinforcements from Lee. At dark on the seventeenth the Federals succeeded in gaining a horseshoe-shaped lodgment within the Confederate lines. Ransom’s Brigade counterattacked. The 35th North Carolina, more than five hundred men strong, advanced in the dark, storming the parapets and fighting the enemy hand-to-hand.
The intensity of this little-known struggle is said to have matched that of the cauldrons of Sharpsburg and Spotsylvania. The colonel of the 35th was killed and the regimental colors lost, but the men captured three enemy flags. Victory was guaranteed only when a stentorian captain ordered up a regiment of imaginary reinforcements, and several hundred of the enemy surrendered. Ransom’s Brigade suffered about 450 casualties in the audacious charge, including more than 150 from the 35th North Carolina. One of them was First Sergeant Query, who was shot in the right arm.
On June 18 Query was transferred to the Confederate General Hospital at Kittrell Springs, Granville County, North Carolina (present day Vance County). He remained there at least through July 6. There are no further records for him until Company H’s muster roll for November-December 1864, which reports him at home on sick furlough. He was admitted to a Confederate Hospital at Charlotte on December 28, suffering from chronic diarrhea, but returned to duty on January 5, 1865. Query was reported present on the January-February 1865 muster roll of Company H.
Based upon casualties sustained during the period March 25-April 9, 1865, the 35th North Carolina probably numbered between 400-500 men present for duty in March 1865. However, serious losses were sustained in the failed assault on Fort Stedman on March 25 (about 100 men) and at Five Forks on April 1 (nearly 190 men captured). A remnant of only 116 men surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9.
One of the Five Forks prisoners was First Sergeant Query. He was imprisoned at Hart’s Island, New York Harbor, until June 19, 1865, when he was released after taking the Oath of Allegiance.
Leander Query (July 19, 1839-May 13, 1907) is buried at Mallard Creek Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Mecklenburg County.
Creator
Unknown Photographer
Source
1860 U. S. Census, Eastern District, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, population schedule, page 33, dwelling 280, family 281, James A. Query household; Manarin et. al., North Carolina Troops 9:437-438; Mast, “North Carolina Casualties”; Mast, State Troops and Volunteers, 1:200, 216; service record files of Leander Query, 35th Regiment N.C. Troops, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers from the State of North Carolina (M270), RG109, NA; http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr...
Contributor
Fred D. Taylor Collection
Format
Post-War Albumen Copy of Original Image
Files
Citation
Unknown Photographer, “First Sergeant Leander Query,” Tar Heel Faces, accessed May 17, 2024, https://tarheelfaces.omeka.net/items/show/84.
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