Avery man writes book about local Civil War units

The Civil War lasted four years, but an Avery County resident said recently that he essentially 'lived' for six years with soldiers from that bloody struggle as he researched and wrote "The Thirty-Seventh North Carolina Troops: Tar Heels in the Army of Northern Virginia."

Michael C. Hardy of Crossnore added that he became obsessed with tracking down details on the men who served in the 37th, a venture which often took him down backroads of Alleghany, Wilkes, Ashe, Caldwell, Alexander, Watauga (where at least half of the men were from) and other counties as he recorded burial sites of its veterans. Co. K of the regiment was organized in Sparta as the Alleghany Tigers on Sept. 15, 1861, and was composed mostly of men from Alleghany County.

A company ideally had about 100 men, but only 10 men were in Co. K at the Confederate surrender at Appomatox. They included Capt. Thomas J. Armstrong, Third Lt. Thomas W. Wiggins and the following privates: J.J. Arvens, Alfred C. Blevins (served the entire war), Henry Jenkins, John J. Owens, John A. Parker, William Saunders, W.M. Sumbers and Hugh W. Webb.

Hardy said he visited over half of the graves of the 2,000-plus men who served in the regiment, which he said suffered the most casualties of any North Carolina regiment in the war. Burial sites are included with brief sketches for most of the men, including many in Alleghany.

By compiling excerpts of letters, demographic data and war records of soldiers in the 37th, Hardy helped explain why they fought and how their experiences continue to shape the perspectives of people today.

"For the majority of the men who volunteered with the 37th, personal freedom and choice were far more relevant than abstract concepts such as state's rights and emancipation," he wrote. Few of them owned slaves and many were grandsons of men who fought in the American Revolution. With 60 percent of the soldiers in the regiment from counties in the mountains or foothills and the rest from the Piedmont, Hardy's work also provided a perspective on how the war was viewed in two different parts of the state.

The vast majority of men in the 37th were farmers, their average age was 30.4, they averaged over 5'8" tall and a large portion of them could read and write. Among their ranks were many sets of brothers and even some fathers and sons. Watauga County's two companies in the regiment had 31 sets of brothers.

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