The Life and Letters of
Lieutenant John W. Hanks
By Virginia Morris Hanks Taylor
Editor's Note: Virginia Morris Hanks Taylor was the sister of Chatham County veteran John W. Hanks. This memorial to her brother was written soon after his death on September 15, 1916, and was graciously provided for publication in Cartersville Crossroads by Laura Munson Cooper, of Arlington, Texas, a member of the Hanks family.
John Wesley Hanks was born on March 26, 1844, in Pittsboro, where he received a liberal academic education until the breaking out of the War Between the States, when North Carolina's patriotic fathers and many of her boy students enlisted for the service in the Southern cause.
An older brother enlisted at once, and John wished much to go also; but, on account of his extreme youth, our father withheld his consent until some months later, when he yielded to his request that he might join the ranks of Co. G, 3rd North Carolina Regiment, on duty at that time in Virginia.
John was wounded at the Battle of Malvern Hill and sent to the hospital in Richmond, where our father, who was a physician, found him and was allowed to carry him home for treatment. As soon as his wounds were healed, John returned to his post of duty.
He was engaged in many battles, sometimes acting as a courier to Gen. Robert E. Lee, but sustained no further injury until the Battle of Sharpsburg, where a comrade saw him fall. John was reported among the list of the dead, and for many weeks, his family mourned him as lost. But, one afternoon, the old stage horn blew a cheerful blast on the eastern limit of town, and the driver called loudly, "Where is Dr. Hanks? Little John is not dead, but is in Richmond, an exchanged prisoner, wounded in his side and both legs."
Our father lost no time in reaching him, and the wounds, though serious, healed sufficiently for John to join his command at Fredericksburg, and to take part in the battles fought there and at Chancelorsville.
At the latter place, a call was made for volunteers to burn a two-story house, filled with Federal sharpshooters menacing the Confederate lines. Brother John was one of the four, who dashed through a rain of bullets to accomplish this.
The very audacity of the charge helped them to reach a barn in the rear, from which they secured bundles of hay. Bearing these in their arms and reaching the house, they broke the panes of glass with their fists, thrust in the lighted hay against the draperies and succeeded in setting fire to the building.
They returned safely to their line. My brother accompanied Gen. Lee on his march into Pennsylvania. Owing to the old wounds, which as yet had not thoroughly healed, and the hardships undergone, John shortly afterwards returned to his home in Pittsboro for a rest. Being unfit then for active duty, Governor Vance of North Carolina issued him a lieutenant's commission to drill the Junior Reserves in the western part of the state.
Among these reserves were many Cherokee Indians. John learned to speak their language and soon became a great favorite among them; he often alluded in later years to their many sterling qualities.
This company, while learning the Manual of Arms, for want of better equipment, drilled with corn stalks, there being only one old rusty musket in the whole company. Col. Kirk, a renegade bushwhacker, learning of the situation, rushed his force upon them one day and made prisoners of all. The officers were bound with bedcords and sent to headquarters for disposal.
Col. Kirk had demanded dinner from a Southern sympathizer, who chanced to be an old friend of our father. The captured officers were placed in a front room while Kirk ate, and our soldier boy managed to get a book from a table nearby and hastily wrote on a fly leaf his name and the address of our father, hoping the friend who had not recognized him, would see it and send it to his father, which he did. In this way, the family learned again of his fate.
John was sent to a prison for officers on Johnson's Island. The less we speak of this place, the better. Here, he languished for many months, even after the close of the war. But for the kindness of Miss Sevres, a Southern sympathizer, he might have died of sheer privation. As the prisoners marching through the streets of Baltimore passed her, she pitied a mere lad in the line, who, though limping through the dusty streets in evident pain and weariness, still maintained a soldierly bearing.
She became interested enough to select him as one whom she would help personally. She not only obtained necessary information in regard to him, but wrote to his father that she would supply him with warm clothing and food as long as she was allowed.
The escape of some prisoners from Johnson's Island, across the frozen lake into Canada (a thing considered impossible), caused these privileges to be denied to them. John then endured the pangs of hunger to such an extent that never afterwards could he bear to hear anyone use the common expression, "I am hungry." He would always say, "God grant you may never know the meaning of that sentence, for you never could realize it without experiencing the pangs."
After recovering his health in a measure, he came to Texas, where he has made his home. All the hardships he passed through, and the sufferings he endured did not destroy the natural brightness of his disposition. He was always genial, gentle and kind, enlivening the home with his pleasantries. His joking never caused pain to the most sensitive, and he was too sympathetic to wound anyone.
Selected John W. Hanks Letters
