Battle of South Mountain • Turner’s Gap • Fox’s Gap • Crampton’s Gap
The trail to the North Carolina monument
The North Carolina monument on South Mountain is on Wise’s farm in Fox’s Gap about 1000 feet south of the Garland and Reno monuments along Reno Monument Road. (see map) The monument is a life sized bronze figure of a wounded color bearer on a base of black granite. It was created by sculptor Gary Casteel for the Living History association of Mecklinburg North Carolina and unveiled on October 18, 2003. It is dedicated to all the North Carolina troops who fought at South Mountain.
Text from the front of the monument
North Carolina
In memory of the North Carolinians who fought at or near here September 14, 1862. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 20th, 23rd, 30th Infantry and Manly’s and Reilly’s Battery, 1st NC Artillery.
General D. H. Hill was in command of the Confederates with elements of Longstreet’s Corps arriving in the afternoon. The fighting here at Fox’s Gap saw one of the few instances of actual hand-to-hand combat of the war. The 13th NC was totally surrounded after the mortal wounding of Brig. Gen. Samuel Garland just a few yards from here. Two days after the battle, 58 Confederate dead were dumped down the well of Daniel Wise located NW. In 1874, they were reinterred in Hagerstown, MD.
Deo Vindice
Text from the rear of the monument
Driven back from the front, the enemy falling back through Wise’s garden, were met by our line coming up from the rear in the flank, and a terrific fight ensued. The color bearer of a Confederate regiment jumped up on the rear wall of the garden, and defiantly waving his flag, refused the many calls to surrender which he received, was shot and fell inside the garden wall. Private Hoagland of my company jumped over the fence and secured the flag. Lt. Col. Coleman of the 11th, who was present, and who had called upon the man to surrender, ordered Hoagland to deliver the flag to him, and afterwards claimed credit of its capture.
-R. B. Wilson, 12th Ohio
Letter to Gen. E. A. Carmen, Antietam Board, July 22, 1899
Dedicated October 18, 2003
The living History Association of Meckenburg, Inc. (NC) and the Central Maryland Heritage League.
The monument is in the woods near the stone wall at the edge of Wise’s Field, all little changed since 1862.
More views of the North Carolina monument by sculptor Gary Casteel
