Descendants of Telemacus & Hannah Smith Alexander:

Ulysses Columbus Alexander

Ulysses Columbus Alexander was born in September of 1833 in Mecklenburg County.¹ In 1850 he was living with his siblings on the family farm,² and he first appeared in the records of Sharon Presbyterian Church as a communicant in 1853. (The total number taking communion at that time was 145, a respectable number for a country church.³)

In the 1860 census, Ulysses' occupation was blacksmith, and he was still on the family farm.⁴ He served with his brothers Silas Washington and Oswald in Company B of the 13th Infantry Regiment of North Carolina Troops. He was detailed for duty with the regimental band in February of 1863.

Only six days before the surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, Ulysses was captured at Richmond and put in Libby Prison. Libby was located in Richmond and had been a warehouse for a ship supplier. The Confederates used it for a prison until the surrender, when the Union took it over to house Confederate prisoners.

Ulysses was transferred to a prison in Newport News, Virginia on April 23. He died of chronic diarrhea there on June 27, 1865,⁵ another tragic footnote in his family's history. Confinement in a Civil War military prison on either side was a gruesome experience. Prisoners were in makeshift, overcrowded conditions with poor sanitation and inadequate food. Libby, which had room for about 1,000 persons, housed over 4,000 at one point. The death rate in prison is said to have been higher than that on the battlefield.⁶

Confederate soldiers who died in prisons or hospitals were usually buried in cemeteries established nearby. After the war, national cemeteries were established for the reburial of soldiers. One of these is Ulysses' most likely burial place.⁷

Footnotes:

1. Stafford, Dr. Alvah, Alexander Notebooks, Volume 1, (Charlotte NC: Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, 1985) p. 81.

2. Population Schedule of the Seventh Census of the United States: 1850, North Carolina, (Washington: National Archives and Record Service) pp. 22, family #355.

3. Records of Sharon Presbyterian Church, 1830-1960, Reel HF 202, Volume 1830-1855, (Presbyterian Historical Society, Montreat, N.C.: 1969.) p. 110.

4. Population Schedule of the Eighth Census of the United States: 1860, Roll 906, North Carolina, Vol. 11, Mecklenburg County (Washington: National Archives and Record Service, 1967) Charlotte Township, family #84.

5. Manarin, Louis H. North Carolina Troops: 1861-1865 A Roster. Vol. V: Infantry 11th-15th Regiments, (Raleigh: North Carolina State Dept of Archives and History, 1975) pp. 298-299.

6 "Virginia Prisoner of War Camps," Copyright by MyCivilWar.com, 2005, accessed 11-17-05. http://www.mycivilwar.com/pow/1-virginia.htm

7. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register Bulletin #41, "Guidelines for Evaluating and Registering Cemeteries and Burial Places," http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb41/nrb41_5.htm, accessed 11-17-05

Illustration of Libby Prison, Richmond, Va., 1865, (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-39.)

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From Mecklenburg to Moore: Four North Carolina Families    /Descendants of Telemacus and Hannah Smith Alexander
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