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THE "BETHEL" REGIMENT.
THE FIRST NORTH CAROLINA VOLUNTEERS.
By MAJOR EDWARD J. HALE.
"First at Bethel; last at Appomattox!" is an epigram which
embodies the spirit of all the serious acts of North Carolina.
She has not exhibited those boastful qualities which seem to
characterize the peoples of new countries. She had passed her
century before she discovered that it was the making, not the
writing, of history which chiefly distinguished her, and recorded
the fact in her recently adopted motto. It may be said of her
as the Duke of York said of Richard's noble father
:
"In peace, was never gentle lamb more mild;
In war, was never lion raged more fierce."
When we consider these peculiarities of our mother State,
assimilating her more nearly than her sisters to old-world com-munities,
with their repose and reserved strength, we will be
prepared to understand the secret of the surprises which she gave
to her neighbors. It will also explain why so few general offi-cers
were accorded to her at first, and so grudgingly, and how it
came about, before the war had ended, that the North Carolina
contingent in the Army of Northern Virginia were masters of
the situation. Indeed, no thoughtful soldier of that army, ob-serving
the course of events in the last year or two of ithe war,
could hesitate to believe that if it had lasted a year longer the
leadership of the army, saving Lee himself, would have been
supplied by North Carolinians—that is to say, by those who
contributed the greater number of soldiers as well as the greater
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