The Men of Randolph-Macon College and the Civil War

In 1861, talk of secession transformed into armed conflict. Many of the men educated at Randolph-Macon College in the preceding 29 years immediately responded to the calls of their state militias to serve, while others later enlisted or were conscripted into the Confederate or Union armies. Others served in public office, or were ultimately drawn into the conflict in the last days in reserve units in local defense. These are their stories.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Tazewell Hargrove, class of 1848

Hargrove, a lawyer in Granville County, NC, was a delegate in North Carolina's secession convention. He enlisted on March 10, 1862 in Company A of the 44th NC Infantry and was immediately made captain. He was promoted to major shortly afterward, on May 3, 1862, and was a lieutenant colonel by June 26, 1863, when he was wounded and captured at a skirmish in Virginia at the Battle of the South Anna Bridge. He spent the rest of the war in prison, first at Fort Delaware, DE; then at Johnson's Island, OH; then at Point Lookout, MD; back to Fort Delaware; on to Hilton Head, SC; then to Fort Pulaski, GA; back to Hilton Head; and finally back to Fort Delaware, where he refused to take the oath of allegiance until late July, 1865, when he was finally released.