I was excited to find two really nice photographs of one of my guys and got way down in a research hole before learning he wasn’t one of mine after all … here’s the story.
The soldiers in this picture are William Anderson Roberts and his older brother John Russell L. Roberts, and it was taken sometime after July 1862, which is when William was conscripted into Confederate service. John had volunteered the year earlier. Both were devoutly religious, perhaps evident in the bibles they hold, William then about 25, John, 33.
Luckily for them but unfortunately for me, neither man was at Sharpsburg in September 1862, both being home on sick furloughs.
Here’s William perhaps 2 years later, looking exhausted after suffering with an injury to his left wrist and elbow (the image is reversed, the sling supports his left arm) at Gettysburg in 1863, and also dealing with frequent illness and a morphine addiction.
Both these images are in Greg Mast’s excellent State Troops and Volunteers, A Photographic Record of North Carolina’s Civil War Soldiers (Volume 1, 1995), and I’ve included his captions here.
Unfortunately Greg Mast and others have confused William’s military service with that of another man: Anderson Roberts, who was at Sharpsburg.
Mast has William enlisting in Company K of the 6th North Carolina Infantry in June 1861, wounded by a gunshot to his hand at Sharpsburg in September 1862, and retired to the Invalid Corps in January 1865.
All that was actually Anderson.
William was drafted into Company A of the 14th North Carolina in July 1862, was hurt “rushing over some high fences” – his left wrist sprained and elbow dislocated – at Gettysburg in July 1863, and detailed for the rest of the war in Danville, VA.
William’s modern government grave marker also has his service confused; right company, wrong regiment – and the wrong death year too.
It’s easy to see how one could confuse these two men. Here’s a comparison of their life and service basics:
| William Anderson Roberts | Anderson Roberts | |
| Birth | 22 May 1837, Caswell County, NC | c. 1837, NC |
| Home in 1860 | Yanceyville, Caswell County, NC | Alamance County, NC |
| Occupation | Portrait painter | Farmer |
| Enlistment type | Conscription (drafted) | Volunteer |
| Enlistment date/place | 16 July 1862, Raleigh | 20 June 1861, Camp Alamance |
| Rank and Unit | Private, Company A, 14th North Carolina Infantry | Private, Company K, 6th North Carolina Infantry |
| War wound/injury | Left wrist and elbow hurt falling from a fence at Gettysburg, PA in July 1863 | A gunshot which “tore off half” of his right hand at Sharpsburg, MD in September 1862 |
| Later service | Did not return to his unit; detailed in Danville, VA remainder of the war | Did not return to his unit; furloughed to NC into January 1865, then retired to Invalid Corps |
| Post-war occupation | Portrait painter and farmer in VA, NC, elsewhere | Farmer in NC |
| Family | Married 1859 Mary Catherine Watlington (1837-1912), 2 daughters | Married c 1858 Millie Ward (-1879), 3 children; married 1881 Mary Turner (1852-) |
| Death | c. September 1900, Caswell County, NC | c. 1900, Caswell County, NC |
Notes
Thanks to Lea C. Lane for first twigging me to the mixup between the two Privates Roberts on her blog This is W.A.R. – The Life and Times of William Anderson Roberts. It was her work in William’s papers at Duke that helped nail his service down for me.
That vast collection of papers [finding aid] is in the Rubenstein Library at Duke University in Durham, NC.
My sources for details about both men are their Compiled Service Records, the US Census, family genealogists, and Anderson Roberts’ 1885 Confederate pension application.
William Anderson Roberts’ grave marker photograph is from his memorial on Findagrave, and is carefully watermarked and annotated as copyright 2019 by Carolina Caswell (apparently a Findagrave username).
I’ve not found any evidence, but I would not be surprised to learn these two men were related. They were born and died within a few miles of each other and in the same years. There’s an Anderson Township in Caswell County, just a few miles south of Yanceyville – perhaps named for a common Anderson ancestor whose name carried down among the Roberts.
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