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This past weekend I went to visit my parent's and grandparent's graves in the city cemetery of Bolton, Mississippi. Established about 1860, the Bolton Cemetery has been the final resting place of the town's residents for over 150 years.
Over the years I have visited cemeteries in many different states, and I have to say that I have enjoyed these trips immensely. For an historian such as myself, visiting a cemetery is like opening a storybook, and each grave is a page in that book. Some of the stories are sad, some inspiring, a few even heroic; but I find them all very, very, interesting.
Within sight of my family plot is a simple marble gravestone that has turned gray from years of exposure to the elements. Although dirty, the information on the front is still quite legible, marking it as the final resting place of O.B. Heitman, who served in Company B, 13th North Carolina Infantry. I was curious as to why a North Carolina soldier was buried in a small Mississippi cemetery, so I decided to see what I could find about Mr. Heitman.
Orin Burgess Heitman was born in 1845 in Davidson County, North Carolina, to John and Anna Heitman. In addition to Orin, the Heitman family included two other children: daughters Nancy and Mary. (1850 U.S. Census, Davidson County, North Carolina, accessed on Ancestry.com, September 11, 2018.)
On January 1, 1863, Orin, now approximately 18 years old, married Elizabeth C. Ripple, who was five years older than him. (North Carolina Index to Marriage Bonds, 1741 - 1868, accessed on Ancestry.com, September 11, 2018.) The young couple was soon be parted by the war; Orin was of military age, and with the Confederacy in need of all the manpower it could get its hands on, he would soon be called to fight.
Orin B. Heitman enlisted in Company B, 13th North Carolina Infantry, on March 1, 1864. He joined a veteran unit that had seen extensive combat with the Army of Northern Virginia. The National Park Service gives the following overview of the regiment's service on their Soldiers and Sailors website:
13th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry
OVERVIEW:
13th Infantry Regiment, formerly the 3rd Volunteers, was organized at Garysburg, North Carolina, in May, 1861, with 1,100 men. Its members were recruited in Caswell, Mecklenburg, Davie, Edgecombe, and Rockingham counties. Ordered to Virginia, the unit was assigned to General Colston's, Garland's, Pender's, and Scales' Brigade. It shared in the many campaigns of the Army of Northern Virginia from Williamsburg to Cold Harbor, endured the battles and hardships of the Petersburg trenches south of the James River, and took part in the Appomattox operations. This regiment totalled 575 effectives in April, 1862, lost 29 killed and 80 wounded during the Seven Days' Battles, and had 41 killed and 149 wounded in the Maryland Campaign. It reported 37 casualties at Fredericksburg and 216 at Chancellorsville. Of the 232 engaged at Gettysburg, more than seventy-five percent were disabled. It surrendered 22 officers and 193 men. The field officers were Colonels Joseph H. Hyman, William D. Pender, and Alfred M. Scales; Lieutenant Colonels W.S. Guy, Henry A. Rogers, Thomas Ruffin, Jr., and E. Benton Withers; and Majors John T. Hambrick, D.H. Hamilton, Jr., and T.A. Martin. (https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=CNC0013RI)
On one of the muster rolls for the 13th North Carolina, a physical description of Orin B. Heitman was recorded. It stated he had a dark complexion, dark brown hair, and blue eyes. The young man stood an imposing 5 feet, 4 1/2 inches tall. Not long after joining the 13th North Carolina, Orin was stricken by that great killer of Civil War soldiers: disease. On the May - June 1864 roster of the regiment, he was listed as "at home sick" with typhoid fever. Orin managed to survive, and he was back with his regiment by May - June 1864. The young soldier was wounded sometime in September or October 1864, but it must not have been a serious wound, as he was quickly returned to duty. Orin remained with the regiment until the last days of the war when he was captured at Petersburg, Virginia, on April 2, 1865. Sent to Point Lookout, Maryland, prisoner of war camp, Orin was released on June 13, 1865, after taking the oath of allegiance to the United States. (Compiled Service Record of Orin B. Heitman, 13th North Carolina Infantry, accessed on Fold3.com, September 11, 2018.)
With the war over, Orin returned home to his wife in North Carolina. By the time the census taker came around in 1870, the family had expanded to include two sons: Philip, age 4, and John, age 2. On the census Orin was listed as a farmer by occupation, and the real estate he owned was valued at $370.00, and his personal estate was valued at $100.00. (1870 U.S. Census, Davidson County, North Carolina, accessed on Ancestry.com, September 11, 2018.) Sometime between 1880 and 1900, and Orin moved his family to Bolton, Mississippi, where he operated a small farm. (1900 U.S. Census, Hinds County, Mississippi, accessed September 16, 2018.)
In August 1913, Orin applied for a Confederate soldier's pension, and acknowledged that he was indigent and unable to support himself by his own labor. He also stated that he was living in a rented home, and that all of his children were married and unable to provide for his support. (Pension application of Orin B. Heitman, Mississippi Department of Archives and History.)
Orin B. Heitman died on October 1, 1917, and was buried in the Bolton City Cemetery. It wasn't until nearly 20 years later, however, that one of his relatives applied for a government headstone to mark his grave. (U.S. Headstone applications for military veterans, 1925 - 1963, accessed on Ancestry.Com, September 16, 2018.)
I wish I could tell a more complete story about Orin B. Heitman's civil war service: it would be wonderful to have letters he wrote to his wife or parents during the war; or a diary he kept in the trenches around Petersburg; or even just a post-war reminiscence written for his children to explain his small part in a great big war. But I don't have any of those things, so I had to piece to together an incomplete story based on the records that have survived to the present day. The next time I go to visit my parent's graves in the Bolton City Cemetery, I will take a small Confederate flag and place it on the grave of Orin B. Heitman; I think he would appreciate the fact that over a century after his death, his service to his country has not been forgotten.
