Collett Leventhorpe, the English Confederate

This is the story of Collett Leventhorpe (1815–1889), an Englishman and former captain in the 14th Regiment of Foot. Leventhorpe came to North Carolina about 1843, settled there, and later served the Confederacy as a colonel in the 34th and 11th N.C. and brigadier general commanding the Home Guard in eastern North Carolina. Though he trained as a physician at the College of Charleston in the late 1840s, he never practiced and was a restless man, endlessly in search of fortune—before the war in the gold fields of North Carolina and Georgia, and after it in the pursuit of lost estates, art treasures and inventions. But he excelled first and foremost as a Confederate soldier. As a field commander he was never defeated in battle, and his record was marred only by his own rejection of a much deserved but very late promotion to CSA brigadier. He lies buried in the beautiful Happy Valley section of Caldwell County.

J. Timothy Cole is a librarian at Greensboro Public Library and an archivist at Guilford College. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Bradley R. Foley is a librarian at Randolph County Public Library and is editor of The Guilford Genealogist. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.

J. Timothy Cole and Bradley R. Foley
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 300
Bibliographic Info: 35 photos, appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2007
pISBN: 978-0-7864-2649-2
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8324-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      v
Preface      1

1. English Roots: Ancestry, Youth and the 14th Foot, ca. 1600–1842      7
2. To America: Rutherfordton and the Quest for “Eldorado,” 1843–1861      34
3. “The Best Drilled Regiment,” 1861–1862      61
4. Pettigrew, Pennsylvania and Prison, 1863–1864      90
5. In the Service of His State, 1864–1865      136
6. Post-Bellum Years: Wanderings, Reconstruction Politics and the Seeker of Fortunes, 1865–1889      162
7. Epilog: A Confederate Hero’s Day, May 11, 1896      204

Appendices
I. The Leventhorpes of East London      207
II. Some Courts-Martial During Col. Leventhorpe’s Command of the 11th NC      210
III. Regimental Orders for Changes in the Cape Fear District Command, September, 1862      220
IV. Personal Effects of Four Men Killed at the Battle of White Hall, December 16, 1862      223
V. Poems by General Leventhorpe      226
VI. “General Collett Leventhorpe,” an Address by Col. Edmund Jones, Raleigh, May 11, 1896      232

Chapter Notes      241
Bibliography      273
Index      285

“well researched and written, this book is the finest to date on Collett Leventhorpe. It contributes significantly to the scholarship on North Carolina during the Civil War…well worth reading”—The North Carolina Historical Review.