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Walter M. Bryson and George Mills
Walter
"Watt" M. Bryson, the son of prominent citizen William Bryson of Hendersonville, marched off to war with Henderson County
troops when North Carolina seceded in May of 1861. Watt Bryson was a graduate of the SC Medical College in Charleston, and
came home to Hendersonville in time to enlist on May 15, 1861 as a private in the "Henderson Rifles." With him went George
Mills, an 17-year-old slave belonging to his father, to serve as his body servant.
Early in the war Walter Bryson was
elected (following the custom of the time) by his fellow soldiers to serve as captain of their company, which by then had
been designated Company G of the 35th NC Troops. The 35th NC Troops served as part of Ransom's Brigade in eastern North Carolina
and Virginia, fighting in the battles of New Bern, Seven Pines and Malvern Hill.
During the Army of Northern Virginia's
invasion of Maryland, Captain Bryson was killed by a Yankee sharpshooter at the Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam), Maryland
on September 17, 1862, at the age of 21. Following the battle George Mills recovered Watt's body and, using money in the possession
of the captain at the time of his death, moved the remains from the battlefield to Fredericksburg, VA. There he purchased
a cast iron casket and traveled with it by rail to Greeneville, TN, where he again acquired a wagon and returned the remains
to the Bryson family in Hendersonville after an arduous journey, fulfilling his promise to the Bryson family.
Following
his return to Henderson County, George Mills served in the Home Guard throughout the war, and eventually received a Confederate
pension until his death in 1926. Mills was active in the local Confederate veterans' association and also attended at least
three national reunions of the United Confederate Veterans, according to his daughter Mabel Mills.
Walter M. Bryson's
body was originally interred at the Methodist Church on the corner of Sixth Avenue West and Church Street, but was relocated
to Oakdale Cemetery in 1923, still in the original cast iron coffin purchased in Fredericksburg so many years before. George
Mills is buried across the highway in that same cemetery, his grave marked with a Confederate Cross of Honor and memorial
plaque placed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1960. The two heroes of SCV Camp 70 have come to rest in the same
cemetery, together in death as they were in life.
In April 2006 the members of Camp 70 voted by an overwhelming majority
to redesignate their camp the "Capt. Walter M. Bryson-George Mills Camp" to pay proper tribute to this remarkable story.
— researched by Michael Arrowood
Sources:
"Bushwhackers: The Civil War in North Carolina; The Mountains"
by William R. Trotter, 1988
"From the Banks of the Oklawaha, Vol. 1" by Frank L. Fitzsimmons, 1976
"A Partial
History of Henderson County" by James T. Fain, Jr., 1980
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