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This information is contributed by Don Matthews Lewis Peterson, Benjamin W. Matthews Duplin County neighbor, and a person of an approximately similar age as him, was also one of my grandfathers. He also served as a Pvt. Company B, 1st Heavy Artillery Bn. However, he apparently enlisted somewhat later than Benjamin W. Matthews did. I'm not sure about what date. He too survived the war. I have no further information on his military service. In 1880, he was a farmer and a head of household in Upper Rockfish Twp., Duplin County, N.C. His age was given as 61 at the 1880 census date. His wife Mary E. (her maiden name was Mary Elizabeth Rich) was 52 in 1880. Their son Luther T. was 17 at that date and their daughter Frances E. (Frances Elizabeth) was 12. That was the family in 1880. I don't know when Lewis Peterson died. In Duplin County, N.C. in 1888 one of Benjamin W. Matthews sons, George Thomas Matthews, would marry Lewis Peterson's daughter Frances Elizabeth Peterson. George Thomas Matthews and his wife "Bettie" would eventually leave Duplin County around the turn of the 20th century, moving first to a farm in Pender County, N.C. where my father Donovan P. Matthews was born in July 1908. (My dad unofficially changed his name sometime later in his life through common usage to Donald P. Matthews, but when he was married in Brunswick County, Va. in March 1928 he still gave his name as Donovan P. Matthews.) The Matthews family sold their Pender County farm circa 1913. From there they moved to Wilmington, N.C. where my grandfather George worked for Wilmington City Streets Dept. for the rest of his life. Grandfather George Thomas Matthews died in Jan. 1928. His wife "Bettie" my grandmother died in 1944 while my father was still overseas in the Pacific with the Navy during WWII. Grandmother Bettie Matthews lived on Campbell Street in Wilmington as late as WWII. I know from personal contacts that she died in the summer of 1944, but I haven't been able to locate a N.C. death certificate for her. She may have lived the last few years of her life with one of her children elsewhere in North Carolina or in Virginia. My dad served in the Navy Seabees from May 5, 1942 until sometime in October 1945. His name on all Navy records was Donald P. Matthews. He was a 2nd Class Petty Officer. Honorably discharged. Pacific Theatre Ribbon. The following information is in reference to the the 1st N.C. Heavy Artillery Battalion in which both Benjamin W. Matthews and Lewis Peterson served: No official records of this unit survive after about mid-1864 but what is known is that this particular Artillery battalion was one of the main defending units assigned to the forts around Wilmington, NC. Following the first battle at Ft. Fisher in December 1865 and the second battle there in January 1865 which resulted in the loss of the fort, these battles being events that claimed the lives or limbs of many of this particular battalion, the survivors of the unit were combined with survivors of several other artillery units to form a small infantry brigade. This little makeshift brigade was referred to at the time as the "Red Infantry" (because the color designation of Artillery within the Confederate Army was red - Infantry was blue - and all these men had patches or bands of red on their uniform caps or lapels). Long after the war was over, this battalion was referred to in Judge Walter Clarks "North Carolina Regiments" as the 9th North Carolina Regiment as part of his effort to make some kind of numerical sense out of the often bewildering Confederate unit designations, and it is under Judge Clark's arbitrary designation of the unit as the 9th N.C. Battalion that the men who served in this unit after the fall of the Wilmington forts are remembered today. The Ninth N.C. Battalion is the unit designation memorialized at Bentonville, where this little N.C. battalion alone broke the first Federal line to their front and held their salient position under heavy fire from three sides for about an hour before being forced to retire from their exposed position to redress the Confederate line. This little battalion was decimated in this fight (over 50% dead and wounded in this one battle) and never recovered to combat capability. After Bentonville, this unit was assigned to outpost duty in Bladen County, N.C. which is where it was located when the war ended a month later. The men were simply discharged on the spot by their superiors and went home with their guns and ammunition intact. Benjamin W. Matthews survived the war and was paroled at Goldsboro, N.C. in May 1865. Lewis Peterson also survived the war, but I have no further information on him. |