Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Ancram W. Ezzell Papers #4960-z, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alternate Form of Material

Microfilm copy (filmed 2005-2006) available.

• Reel 1: Entire collection

Acquisitions Information

Purchased from McGowan Book Co., Chapel Hill, N.C., in December 1998 (Acc. 98250).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Jill D. Snider, June 1999

Encoded by: Jill D. Snider, June 1999

Updated by: Laura Hart, June 2021

This collection was processed with support, in part, from the Randleigh Foundation Trust.

Funding from the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc., supported the microfilming of this collection.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Account books--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Officers.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Ordnance and ordnance stores.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Pay, allowances, etc.
• Confederate States of America. Army--Recruiting, enlistment, etc.
• Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Artillery Regiment, 40th.
• Confederate States of America. Army. North Carolina Infantry Regiment, 32nd.
• Duplin County (N.C.)--Economic conditions.
• Ezzell, Ancram W., b. 1837.
• Fort Fisher (N.C.)
• Medicine--Formulae, receipts, prescriptions--History--19th century.
• Merchants--North Carolina--History--19th century.
• North Carolina--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.
• Sharecropping--North Carolina.

Ancram W. Ezzell (b. 1837) was a dry-goods merchant in Duplin County, N.C., and a captain in the Confederate Army. He enlisted in the North Carolina State Troops on 9 July 1861 and received a commission as lieutenant. Between July and August, he helped recruit the "Lenoir Braves," an independent artillery group, also known as "Captain Sutton's Company," for its first captain, William Sutton. The Lenoir Braves were captured at Fort Hatteras on 19 August 1861 and confined on Governor's Island, N.Y., and later at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, Mass. While imprisoned, they were assigned as Company K, 32nd North Carolina Infantry Regiment, but never served in this capacity. Upon their parole for exchange in February 1862, they reorganized as Company A, 40th North Carolina Artillery Regiment.

Ezzell assumed the captaincy of Company A in October 1862 when William Sutton resigned. He served as commander for the remainder of the Civil War. From 1862 to 1865, the company was assigned to several North Carolina locations, including Fort Lane near New Bern, Fort Holmes on Smith's Island, Fort Fisher below Wilmington, and Fort Anderson in Brunswick County. The company was engaged in defending Fort Fisher when the fort fell to Union forces in January 1865. After the war, Ezzell returned to Duplin County, where he operated a dry goods business.

The collection includes 40 North Carolina State Troops enlistment forms, July-August 1861, and a volume, 1861-1865, 1873, 1876-1879, documenting the enlistment, service, command, and daily operations of the "Lenoir Braves" (later known as Company K, 32nd North Carolina Infantry Regiment and Company A, 40th North Carolina Artillery Regiment) and the postwar business activities of Ancram W. Ezzell, a captain in the Confederate Army and later a dry-goods merchant in Duplin County, N.C. The enlistment forms provide birthplace, age, occupation, and physical description of soldiers enlisting in Lenoir County, N.C., and Hyde County, N.C. The volume includes additional data on soldiers, including pay, furloughs, assignments, transfers, reenlistments, absences, desertions, casualties, and deaths. It also contains more than 50 written orders, October 1864-January 1865, relating to the company's command immediately prior to the capture of Fort Fisher and to its subsequent move to Fort Anderson. Also included are ordnance reports for Fort Campbell, Fort Lee, Fort Davis, and Fort Meares. Ezzell's postwar accounts are for groceries and dry goods supplied to A. W. Whitfield, Pompey Whitfield, Haywood Whitfield, Wiley Whitfield, and A. G. Davis. Additional items in the volume include medical receipts, a copy of a sharecropping agreement between A. W. Whitfield and Henry Sasser, and an undated speech by Ezzell to the voters of Duplin County.

• Microfilm reel (M-4960/1)