Battle Of Windsor - January 30th, 1864

The Windsor Rotary Club was treated to a special presentation this week. Harry Thompson came out to tell us the story of the Battle of Windsor.




Collins Cooper (shown above) introduced Harry to the club, though Harry is so famous in this area he really needed no introduction.




Harry Thompson is a passionate story teller, and animatedly uses his arms and hands as he talks. On this day he shared with us the story of how, until a lady from California called him a few years back, he, the sage of the Inner Banks, was not himself aware that there had been a Battle of Windsor.




Harry told us two stories really. One was about the battle. The other was about the research needed to dig the story out from the records of the Civil War that still existed.

A troop of 125 Confederate Cavalry, were attacked by three separate units of what was supposed to be a coordinated attack on Windsor by 1400 Union soldiers. The attack happened at the bridge over the Cashie River at Hoggard Mill. The 3 units only failed to capture the Confederate forces because they arrived at different times. After taking on each untit separately, the Confederate Cavalry forces escaped North to Virginia.

It took considerable research to put together the facts of the battle from historical records, and though the battle was between ground forces, naval records from the ships that delivered the Union forces to the battle were actually the key to understanding what took place.






At the end of the meeting, Rotary Members were allowed to look at the artifacts that have been collected from the battlefield. Above Joe Roberson holds a plaque with various bullets that have been gathered where the battle took place.





Harry Thompson (above) holds a piece of wood from a nearby house that was hit numerous times during the battle by the large musket balls of the time.





Steve Wishall holds what is known to be the very last cannonball fired during the battle, as the Union forces returned to Plymouth by boat.





Harry Thompson (on left above) is presented the traditional cobalt blue coffee mug by Collins Cooper (above on right) as a thank you for a great presentation.