CDV of ID'ed NC Confederate Died of Wounds at Bristoe Station at Picketts Charge
CDV of ID'ed NC Confederate Died of Wounds at Bristoe Station was present at Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg.
This CDV is of Lt. Sidney H. Bridgers of the 47th North Carolina Infantry.
Residence Franklin County, NC; he was a 22-year-old Farmer who enlisted on 2/18/1862 at Franklin County, NC as a 1st Sergt. On 7/16/1862 he was promotioned to a 2nd Lieut. Bridgers mustered into Company "A" North Carolina 47th Infantry. Going through major battles including the battle of Gettysburg where the regiment lost 35% of its force in Picketts Charge. Lt. Bridger would be wounded 10/14/1863 at Bristoe Station, VA being taken to Richmond, Virginia and he would die from his wounds on 11/15/1863.
The 47th Infantry Regiment was organized in March 1862, at Camp Mangum, near Raleigh, North Carolina. Its companies were composed of men from Nash, Wake, Franklin, Granville, and Alamance counties. The regiment served in the Department of North Carolina until May 1863, when it moved to Virginia. During the conflict it was brigaded under Generals James Johnston Pettigrew, William W. Kirkland, and William MacRae. It fought with the Army of Northern Virginia from Gettysburg to Cold Harbor, then was involved in the long Petersburg siege south of the James River and the Appomattox Campaign. The unit lost over 35% of the 567 engaged at Gettysburg and reported 42 casualties at Bristoe and 20 at the Wilderness. It surrendered 5 officers and 72 men.
47th History at GETTYSBURG,
"Early on July 1st, the 47th NC Regiment was in the line which opened the battle of Gettysburg. It is remembered that Company A had eighty-two (82) trigger pullers, each with forty (40) rounds of ammunition, and the other companies were perhaps as large. The morale of the men was splendid, and when it advanced to its first grand charge it was with the feelings of conquerors. We were met by a furious storm of shells and canister and further on by the more destructive rifles of the two (2) army corps confronting us. One shell struck the right company, killing three (3) men, and exploding in the line of file closers, by the concussion, felled to the earth every one of them. The other companies were faring no better. Still our line, without a murmur, advanced, delivering its steady fire amid the rebel yell, and closed with the first line of the enemy. After a desperate struggle this yielded and the second line was met and quickly broken to pieces. The day was a hot one, and the men had difficulty in ramming down their cartridges, so slick was the iron ramrod in hands thoroughly wet with perspiration. All expedients were resorted to, but mainly jabbing the ramrods against the ground and rocks.
This, with the usual causes, undressed our advancing line; still all were yelling and pressing forward through the growing wheat breast high, toward a body of the enemy in sight, but beyond the range of our guns, when suddenly a third line of the enemy arose forty (40) yards in front, as if by magic, and leveled their shining line of gun-barrels on the wheat heads. Though taken by surprise the roar of our guns sounded along our whole line. We had caught the drop on them. Redoubled our yells and a rush, and the work is done. The earth just seemed to open and take in that line which five (5) minutes ago was so perfect.
Just then a Federal officer came in view and rode rapidly forward bearing a large Federal flag. The scattered Federals swarmed around him as bees cover their queen. In the midst of a heterogeneous mass of men, acres big, he approached our left, when all guns in front and from right and left turned on the mass and seemingly shot the whole to pieces. This Federal hero was a Colonel Biddle, who (if he were otherwise competent) deserved to command a corps. It was with genuine and openly expressed pleasure our men heard he was not killed. The day is not ended, but the fighting in our front is over, and the 47th NC Regiment dressed its line and what remained of it marching to the place whence it started on the charge, bivouacked for the night, intoxicated with victory. Many were the incidents narrated on that beautiful, moonlight night.
On July 2nd we were not engaged save in witnessing the marshaling of hosts, with much fighting during the day, and at night a grand pyrotechnic display, this being the struggle on the slope of Little Round Top for the possession of the hill.
On July 3rd, the 47th NC Regiment was put in the front line preparing to make that celebrated, but imprudent charge, familiarly called Pickett's Charge, though just why called Pickett's instead of Pettigrew's Charge, is not warranted by the facts. And why it has been said that Brig. Gen. James J. Pettigrew (NC) supported Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett (VA) instead of Pickett supported Pettigrew, is also incomprehensible. It is certain that the two divisions (Brig. Gen. Pettigrew led Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's Division today) started at the same time, in the same line. Maj. Gen. Pickett's distance to traverse was shorter than that of Brig. Gen. Pettigrew's. Both went to and over the enemy's breastworks, but were too weak from loss of numbers to hold them. Maj. Gen. Pickett's Division was perfectly fresh. Brig. Gen. Pettigrew's had just passed through July 1st in which even its commander (Maj. Gen. Henry Heth) had been knocked out.
If further witness be sought, the respective numbers of dead men in the correctly recorded spots where they fell, supply it. But let it be distinctly understood Brig. Gen. Pettigrew's men appreciate that it was not the brave Maj. Gen. Pickett and his men, who claimed for themselves pre-eminence in this bloody affair. They remember, vividly remember, how Maj. Gen. Pickett chafed while waiting to make his spring, like an untamed lion for his prey. Perhaps the assault was a Confederate mistake. So good an authority as General Robert E. Lee is quoted as saying this much, but that the stakes for which he was playing was so great (it being Harrisburg, Baltimore, and Washington) he just could not help it. On July 3rd they had attempted to march 1,000 yards in quick-time through a raking fire of cannon and minies, with virtually no chance to use their minies—a soldier's main weapon. The skeleton of its former self it returned to the place whence it began its charge and began business without a field officer, and during the balance of the day and the succeeding night welcomed the return of several of our members who, unscathed or wounded in various degrees, crawled from the field of carnage, for the space between the armies continued neutral ground, being covered by the wounded of both. On July 4th Brig. Gen. Pettigrew told us that had we succeeded the evening before, no doubt our army would have been on the road to Washington and perhaps negotiations for peace would then be on foot. Surely the esprit de corps of our regiment was undaunted.On the night of July 4th we moved off leisurely toward Funktown, where we stood up on July 11th to meet a threatened attack which did not materialize, and on July 14th were in the rear guard of the army at Falling Waters to cover the crossing of the Potomic River. Here a drunken squad of Federal cavalry rashly rode on us while resting. Of course they were dispatched at once, but in the melee our Brig. Gen. James J. Pettigrew (NC) received a pistol ball in the stomach from which he died in a day or two. Lt. Col. John T. Jones, of the 26th NC Regiment, was now the only field officer left to the brigade, and as we began to retire to cross the river the enemy furiously charged up and took quite a number of prisoners mainly by cutting our men off from the pontoon bridge."