64th North Carolina Infantry Regiment
From: astrologer928@yahoo.com
Dear Chuck
My ggg uncle [Presley Blankenship] through my ggg grandfather Joseph O. Blankenship seems to have been murdered by Yankees. His son also is shown to be a private in that Regiment, Co. D. The story below explains everything. I have googled this regiment and found out that it is indeed Confederate. Just want to share this with readers.
Thanks.
Gary Price
http://www.civilwarreference.com/regiments/detail.php?regID=3613
Richmond Daily Dispatch Saturday, March 26, 1864
Barbarities of Tories in Tennessee – –
A letter from Marshall, N. C., to the Raleigh Confederate dated the 6th inst., gives the following account of a massacre at Indian Creek, Tennessee:
Lieut. Duyck, with some twelve or fourteen men, were sent to Indian Creek, Tenn., and stationed at Presley Blankenship’s house. They had been there but a few days when on last Wednesday, Major Rirk, (Federal,) commanding 1st N. C. regiment, (tories,) consisting of men from this immediate country, together with Laurell men, dashed upon Lieut. Duyck, killing one and capturing four prisoners. Duyck himself escaped. – They shot the prisoners upon the spot, viz: Marion Kamsey, Reuben Woodard, Coleman Justice, and a man by the name of Sullivan. After they killed the prisoners they stripped them. One man (Woodard) struggled an hour or two, and they placed a gun against his head in the presence of his father, an old man, and blew his brains out. – They then proceeded to Blankenship’s house and murdered him and his son, who were not soldiers. They then took his horses and put them in his wagon, or rather hitched them to it, and loaded his wagon out of his house, and drove his cows off from his children. Lieut. Duyck belongs to the 64th N. C. troops. Source: http://dlxs.richmond.edu/d/ddr/, accessed 11/25/2008 Notes: Who wrote the letter from Marshall? The Raleigh Confederate was a newspaper published in Raleigh, NC in 1864 and 1865. Indian Creek was in Washington County, TN in 1864. Now it is in Unicoi County. Lieut. Duyck (1st Lieutenant John J. Duck, Company F, 64th NC regiment) was dropped from the company rolls on January 21, 1863, for extended absence because of illness. He was restored to the rolls and returned to duty in June-July 1864. Presley Blankenship was a first cousin to my GG Grandfather, David Blankenship. David was a Private in Company D, 64th NC regiment. In 1864, he was a POW in Chicago. He survived the war. Which son of Presley was killed? Major Rirk was actually Major George W. Kirk of Greene County, TN, commanding not the 1st, but the 2nd NC Mounted Infantry (Union). He later became Colonel, 3rd NC Mounted Infantry (Union). Laurell is actually Laurel, a community in Madison County, NC, which bordered Washington County, TN at that time. In the preceding January, Confederate soldiers had killed Union men at that place. Marion Kamsey was actually Private Marion Ramsey, Company A, 64th NC regiment. Ramsey was reported sick at home on June 30, 1863, with no further record of him in the regiment. Private Reuben B. Woodward, Company A, 64th NC regiment was reported present or accounted for through April 30, 1863, with no further record in the regiment. Private Coleman C. Justice, Company A, 64th NC regiment was apparently initially rejected for service, but his name appeared on a receipt roll for clothing dated December 16, 1864. No further record in the regiment. Did he actually survive; or is this a different Coleman Justice? Sullivan could have been Alfred M. or William Sullivan. They were both in the 64th NC regiment.
