THE MONTGOMERY TRUE BLUES

David A. Norris Greenville, N. C. A very long-lived militia company, the Montgomery True Blues were organized in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1836, and served the next year in the Seminole War of 1837 in Florida. The unit tried to volunteer for service during the Mexican War, but were turned down because of a surplus of volunteers at the time. After Civil War service for the Confederacy, the True Blues were reorganized as a National Guard unit and lasted until the late 1930's. They took part in the Mexican Border campaign of 1916, and in World War I. When the Civil War broke out, the Montgomery True Blues quickly joined the Confederate cause. Most of its men were middle-class merchants, attorneys, and other professionals of Montgomery, including some of the most prominent men of the town. The True Blues and some of the other old militia companies from Alabama actually saw some service before the war really began. In January, 1861, the governor of Alabama ordered these companies to guard the entrance to Mobile Bay, and to occupy Pensacola, Florida. The True Blues were enrolled with other existing militia companies into the 3rd Alabama Infantry. A former commander of the True Blues, Tennant Lomax, served as the colonel of the regiment. It has been said that the ranks of the True Blues yielded 25 commissioned officers before the war ended. Although the 3rd Alabama was the first regiment to Leave that state for Virginia in 1861, they didn't see any action for a year. They had a quiet time in garrison duty around Norfolk. Sometime during this period, the regiment was reorganized, and the Montgomery True Blues were detached to serve as a foot artillery company in North Carolina. A few of the men from the company stayed on as infantrymen with the regiment. The True Blues spent the rest of the war as an independent battery, although they were nominally attached to various artillery battalions. The Montgomery True Blues had at least three commanding officers while they were in North Carolina. The original commander, Captain W. G. Andrews, was "dismissed" from the service. For a time, the battery was commanded by Lt. James E. Davis. Later, Lt. Edgar J. Lee was promoted to captain and took command. The company was sometimes referred to as "Andrews' Battery", "Lee's battery", or "Lee's Light Battery". Besides Lee, E. R. Spalding (who resigned), J. E. Davis, William F. Williams and Sidney S. McWhorter served as lieutenants in the battery. The number of men in the battery fluctuated during the war. The Official Records shows the Montgomery True Blues had, on August 31, 1863, 2 officers and 59 men "present for duty." The "aggregate present and absent", which would add to those present all members of the unit on furlough, special details, in hospital, under arrest, or AWOL, was 92. By February, 1864, there was only one officer and 56 men present, and even the aggregate present and absent had slipped to only 78. A December, 1864 report shows the True Blues had a mixed collection of four pieces of artillery, including one longrange 3-inch rifle, a shorter-range smoothbore 12-pounder howitzer, and two 6-pounder guns. The 6-pounder was a common army artillery piece during as the Mexican War, but these guns were considered obsolete by this late in the Civil War. The True Blues served at various places in eastern North Carolina. An article in the Raleigh, N. C. Christian Advocate, on May 20, 1863 revealed some information about the men of the battery, not all of it flattering. On March 8, 1863, three drunken soldiers of the Montgomery True Blues smashed the windows and some of the furniture of "Salem Church on Everettsville circuit." (There was a town at that time called "Everittsville" that was near Dudley, in Wayne County, North Carolina.) The writer deemed it "proper to state that they were foreigners, and infidels." On the next day, the battery was "ordered away" and saw "active and arduous duty" for a time. In May of 1863, a Sergeant Shackleford of the battery sent a letter apologizing for the damage done by his comrades, with ;61 donated by men of the True Blues to help pay for the damage. Shackleford wrote that the men wanted to send more, but they were behind in their pay. Further, they had taken up a donation for the benefit of another of their men who had been wounded in the recent fighting around Washington, N.C. (during late March and early April, 1863.) This wounded comrade, also a foreigner, was "a worthy man and one of our best soldiers". The True Blues were stationed near Kinston, North Carolina when they were ordered out to help intercept Union cavalry raiders under Brig. Gen. Edward E. Potter after they had struck Greenville, Tarboro, and Rocky Mount. The True Blues, with a detachment from the 7th Confederate Cavalry, were waiting at Otter Creek, near Falkland, when Potter reached there on his way back from Tarboro on July 20, 1863. However, they were ordered to open fire a bit too soon, warning Potter's men of the ambush before most of them were in range. Potter slipped away, using a nearby ford, and his force disappeared into the woods. The cavalry officer in command forbade any pursuit until the next morning. The True Blues then joined in the pursuit of Potter, but finally had to give it up because their guns were stuck in roads still muddy from recent rains. A September, 1863 letter from the Conscription Bureau in Richmond warned enrolling officers that there was a problem with forged substitute papers. A large number of these forgeries named the Montgomery True Blues as the unit that the bearer had supposedly hired a substitute for. There was no mention of why the forgers so often used the Montgomery True Blues in their papers. The station of the True Blues was still given as Kinston in December, 1863. Often, official reports were silent on their exact whereabouts. Misfortune again plagued the True Blues when Lt. James E. Davis took the battery's 3-inch rifle and a detachment of men to join on an attack on New Bern led by Maj. Gen. George Pickett in March, 1864. Davis' detachment joined Maj. John C. Haskell's artillery battalion for that campaign. Haskell's guns had a terrible time just getting to the New Bern area. One of the 3-inch rifles of his battalion (Haskell didn't mention if it was the gun of the True Blues or another unit) smashed through a corduroy bridge. It took a great effort to extricate the gun from the water and mud, and it seriously delayed their march. Soon after, another gun crashed through a different bridge along the way, causing further delay. Reaching the north bank of the Neuse, Haskell's guns fired ineffectually at Union gunboats and land positions. Much of their ammunition was defective. The entire attack on New Bern, poorly managed by Pickett, was a grand fizzle. Pickett finally broke off the attack and Davis' detachment returned to camp. The Montgomery True Blues took part in the capture of Plymouth in April, 1864. They were stationed there when that town again fell to Union forces on October 31, 1864 after the destruction of the ironclad C.S.S. Albemarle by a commando-style raid led by Lt. William B. Cushing of the U.S. Navy. The True Blues were embroiled in controversy after the destruction of the Albemarle. Cushing and his men slipped into Plymouth about 3 a.m. on October 28 aboard a steam launch fitted with a boom bearing an explosive device, which was detonated and sank the ironclad. In newspaper articles about the incident, members of the Confederate navy blamed the army. Pickets at Plymouth belonging to the 67th North Carolina were allegedly asleep. At the wharf, where the ironclad was moored, the True Blues had two guns covering the bow and stern. They, too, came under blame from the Navy for failing to stop Cushing. In reply, Lt. W. F. Williams stated that his men were awakened and at their guns "nearly as quickly as the slumbering crew were on their decks", but they could not fire on the launch without killing crewmen on the deck of the Albemarle. Anyway, wondered Williams, since the Navy had been alerted that a steam launch had entered the mouth of the Roanoke River the night before, why had they not been more on the alert, patrolling the river in small boats? For that matter, Williams continued, why didn't the Navy warn the commander of the True Blues so that he could order extra men to be kept on watch? Halifax County diarist Catherine Edmonston reported learning that when Plymouth was evacuated by the Confederates, all of their artillery was captured except two guns and some of the horses of the True Blues. She added that all of the Confederate units that had been at Plymouth, including the Montgomery True Blues, fell back up the Roanoke River to Fort Branch. The Official Records gives Fort Branch as the location of the True Blues in January and February, 1865. Fort Branch was an earthwork fortification on a high cliff overlooking a bend in the Roanoke River near Hamilton, N.C. They were apparently there until the fort's powder and ammunition was blown up, and the guns disabled and pushed into the Roanoke to prevent their capture at the end of the war. A brief mention in Volume VII of Confederate Military History states that the True Blues "blew up Fort Branch", and disbanded at Ridgeway, North Carolina, in April, 1865. Montgomery True Blues Bibliography Thomas G. Rodgers, "The 'Bandbox' soldiers of the 3rd Alabama Infantry ...", America's Civil W , July, 1990. Descriptions of files of the Montgomery True Blues Collection, Alabama State Archives. Christian Advocate, (Raleigh), May 20, 1863. State Journal, (Raleigh), July 30, 1863. Daily Progress, (Raleigh), Aug. 20, 1863. Daily Confederate (Raleigh), Nov. 8, Nov. 9, Nov. 15, 1864. Confederate Military History Vol. VII (Alabama), Confederate Publishing Company, Atlanta, 1899, pps. 328-329. Official Records (Army). Catherine Anne Devereaux Edmonston, Diary of a Sesesh Lady, (editors, Beth Gilbert Crabtree and James W. Patton, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, Raleigh, 1979), p. 632.

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