Catawba County, NC - Isaac Lefevers Papers

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North Carolina State Archives - Private Manuscript Collections

Collection: LEFEVERS, ISAAC, Papers
Catawba County, N.C.
1862-1864
PC 1512.1
Physical Description: 88 items; correspondence

Acquisition: Loaned by Mrs. Elizabeth Lefevers, Charlotte, NC, November 9, 
1972. May be released to Mrs. Lefevers or her son William Lee Lefevers III.

Description: Isaac Lefevers, ca. 1832-1864, of Catawba County, married 
Catharine Rhodes of Lincoln County in 1856. On October 22, 1861, he was 
commissioned a 1st lieutenant in Co. L, 89th Regiment, 22nd Brigade, N. C. 
Militia.  On March 15, 1862, at age 30, he enlisted as a 5th Sergeant in Co. 
K, 46th Regiment, North Carolina Troops.  Sergeant Lefevers was wounded in 
a skirmish on the Charles City Road, Virginia, June 15, 1864, and died at 
Camp Winder Hospital, Richmond, July 14, 1864.

Correspondence dating from March 31, 1862, Camp Mangum, Raleigh, to May 24, 
1864, Spottsylvania Court House, Virginia, consists of 77 letters. In the 26 
months Isaac Lefevers served in the Confederate army he apparently received 
only two furloughs but attempted to write home every week. Letters to his 
wife in this collection number as follows: 1862—17; 1863—39; 1864—10. 

In his letters he directs his wife's efforts to operate the farm and care 
for their three small children. There are many requests for food and 
clothing, as well as expressions of his trust in God, his longing for his 
family, and reports on his health. 

References are made, without elaboration, to duties such as building 
breastworks at Kinston and guarding the salt works at Topsail Sound. However, 
there are details of attempts to hire a substitute and to secure a recruit 
in exchange for a furlough, of punishment of deserters, of revivals in camp, 
of specific kinds of clothing and food needed from home; and some detail of 
battles at Fredericksburg (Dec, 1862) and Spottsylvania Court House 
(May, 1864). An account of an engagement at Bristow Station indicates it was 
short "but severe" (Oct, 1863).

Letters were written in 1862 from North Carolina (Raleigh, Goldsboro), 
Virginia (camps near Petersburg, Richmond, Winchester, Culpepper, 
Fredericksburg); in 1863 from North Carolina (Goldsboro, New Hanover County, 
Kinston), South Carolina (Pocataligo Station); Virginia (Petersburg, Richmond, 
Seven Pines, Hanover Junction, Taylorsville, Gordonsville, Bristow, 
Rappahannock, Rapidan Station); and 1864 from Virginia (Orange Court House, 
Spottsylvania Court House).

In addition to the letters of Isaac to Catharine, there are 4 letters to his 
brother-in-law Henry Rhodes, one from Henry; and 3 to neighbors (J. W. Bandy, 
J. F. Hudson, E. M. Speagle). A companion, Amon Cline, wrote a letter for 
Isaac to Catharine; and 2 letters are from Catharine. There is much repetitive 
material; spelling is often phonetic; and the ink on a few letters has faded.

Miscellaneous items include fragments of 7 more letters and 3 envelopes, one 
of the latter addressed to Sergt. Isaac Lefevers, Winder Hospital, Richmond, 
n.d. 

Finding Aids:

Main Entry Card

Geographic Cards
   North Carolina
   South Carolina
   Virginia

Date Card
   1862-1864

Subject Cards

   WAR—CIVIL—General
      Clothing
      Deserters
      Chaplains
      Food
      Recruiting
      Revivals
      Speculators
      Substitutes
      Wives

   WAR—CIVIL—Battles
      Bristow Station
      Fredericksburg
      Spottsylvania Court House

   WAR—CIVIL—Camps
      Camp Mangum, Raleigh

   WAR—CIVIL—Units
      46th Regiment, Company K 

See Also: Walter Clark (ed.), "Forty-Sixth Regiment, Histories of the Several 
Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War. 1861-1865" 
(Goldsboro, Nash Brothers, 1901), Vol. III. 

Finding Aid completed 31 December 1972 by Ellen Z. McGrew.

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