Capt.(CSA), John Houston Thorp

John Houston Thorpe was born October 2, 1840 in Nash County, the son of John Thorpe and Virginia Wood. He was a graduate of the University of North Carolina and during his lifetime held such occupations as teacher, lawyer, farmer, NC state senator in 1887 and Confederate soldier. On April 18, 1861, he enlisted as a Private in Company A of the 1st North Carolina Volunteers at Tarboro, NC and was quickly promoted to the rank of corporal. In June 1861, Thorpe participated in the Battle of Big Bethel, Virginia, which saw the first death of a Confederate soldier in battle, Private Henry Lawson Wyatt, a native of Tarboro, NC (but was born in Richmond, VA). The 1st Volunteers was only a six-month regiment, and on March 1, 1862, Thorpe reenlisted in Nashville, NC and was commissioned an officer in Company A of the 47th North Carolina. He was promoted from the rank of Lieutenant to Captain on June 25, 1862 after the death of Captain John W. Bryant. He held this position for the remainder of the war, surrendering at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.

Following the war, John returned home and married Sallie Eliza Bunn on December 6, 1866 in Nash County. The couple had two children, Henry Roane Thorpe and Dora Wells Thorpe. In his later life, Thorpe contributed to several works on Confederate soldiers of North Carolina. He wrote the chapter on Company A, 47th NC in Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War, 1861-1865, a book edited by Walter M. Clarke and published in 1901. But perhaps his greatest work was the information that he compiled and in 1925 published in A Roster of Nash County Confederate Soldiers. This must have had great personal meaning to its author, as John Thorpe's own unit, Company A, 47th NC, also known as the Chicora Guards, was raised in Nash County. He died on February 22, 1932 in Rocky Mount, NC. He was originally interred in the Thorpe family cemetery in Nash County, which was removed to Pineview Cemetery in 1948.

The John Houston Thorpe Papers, which contain several of his letters written during the Civil War, can be found in the Southern Historical Collection in the Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A character by the same name appears in the short story "The Last Reunion" and the book Guns of the South, both written by the historical fiction novelist Harry Turtledove. Turtledove based this character off of Thorpe himself and used Thorpe's Roster of Nash County Confederate Soldiers as an integral source in writing Guns of the South.

Sources: 1.Eastern North Carolina Digital Library 2.National Archives Confederate soldier records 3.Turtledove Wiki 4.Wilson Library at UNC Chapel Hill

Thorpe, John H. BATTLE UNIT NAME: 1st Regiment, North Carolina Infantry (6 months, 1861) SIDE: Confederacy COMPANY: A
SOLDIER'S RANK IN: Private SOLDIER'S RANK OUT: Corporal ALTERNATE NAME: FILM NUMBER: M230 ROLL 39 PLAQUE NUMBER: NOTES: none