The University Greys (or Grays) were Company A of the 11th Mississippi Infantry Regiment in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Part of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Greys served in many of the most famous and bloody battles of the war.
Formation
editAt the beginning of the American Civil War, most of the student body of the University of Mississippi rallied to the Confederate cause.[1] Some 55 of the students joined the “University Greys” and 17 enlisted with the “Lamar Rifles,” a Lafayette County militia, while others joined with various other state regiments.[2] Overall, nearly the entire student body (135 men, with the final total men ever enlisted numbering 150) enlisted; only four students reported for classes in fall 1861, so few that the university closed temporarily.
The Greys rifle company joined the 11th Infantry at its inception on May 4, 1861, after Mississippi seceded from the Union. Their name "University Greys" derived from the gray color of the men's uniforms and from the fact that almost all of the Greys were students at the university.
Engagements
editThe Greys fought at the First Battle of Manassas in the brigade of Brigadier General Barnard Elliott Bee, a unit of the Army of the Shenandoah (Confederate) under the command of then-Brigadier General Joseph E. Johnston.[3] They also fought at the Battle of Gaines's Mill, the Battle of Malvern Hill, the Second Battle of Manassas, the Battle of South Mountain and the Battle of Antietam.[4]
As a unit of the division under the command of Brigadier General J. Johnston Pettigrew in Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, when the Confederates made a desperate frontal assault on the Union entrenchments atop Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863. The Greys penetrated further into the Union position than any other unit, but at the terrible cost: every soldier in the company who started the assault was either killed, wounded or captured.[5][6]
After Gettysburg, the depleted Greys were merged with Company G (the "Lamar Rifles"). The unit continued to fight until the last days of the war.
Officers
editOfficers of the University Greys:[7]
- First Lieutenant Calvin B. McCaleb, resigned December 1861.
- First Lieutenant John H. Graham, resigned due to disabling wounds, 1862.
- Captain William B. Lowry, wounded at Seven Pines, 1862.
- Captain Simeon Marsh, resigned August 1863
- Captain John V. Moore
In popular culture
editIn William Faulkner's 1936 novel Absalom, Absalom!, the characters Henry Sutpen and Charles Bon join the University Greys at the outbreak of the Civil War.
The story of the University Greys is memorialized in an opera composed by Dr. Arthur Kreutz, who was Professor of Music at the University of Mississippi, using text from the book of the same name by Zoe Lund Schiller. The opera was published by Ricordi of New York in 1961. A copy of the score resides in the library of the Northern Illinois University. The opera was given its first performance in 1961 at the University of Mississippi under the auspices of the Department of Music.[8]
In Ventress Hall at the University of Mississippi, a stained glass window in Ventress Hall depicts a mustering of the University Greys.
See also
editSources
edit- ^ "The School of Engineering at the University of Mississippi". University of Mississippi. Archived from the original on 9 July 2008.
- ^ "Opinion: The University Greys: Students, Soldiers, Sons Of Slaveholders - The Daily Mississippian". 2017-10-20. Retrieved 2025-01-14.
- ^ Rowland, Dunbar. (1908). The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi, Volume 2. Mississippi Department of Archives and History. pp. 436–444.
- ^ Hess, Earl J. (1959). Pickett's Charge–The Last Attack at Gettysburg (1st ed.). Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-8078-2648-5.
- ^ Stewart, George R. (1959). Pickett's Charge: A Microhistory of the Final Attack at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863 (1st ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 359. ISBN 978-0-395-59772-9.
- ^ Sergeant Jeremiah Gage of the University Greys, who was wounded at the Battle of Gaines's Mill, was killed during the preliminary artillery bombardment. Hess, 2001, p. 156.
- ^ Rowland, Dunbar. (1908). The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi, Volume 2. Mississippi Department of Archives and History. p. 437.
- ^ Margaret Ross Griffel; Adrienne Fried Block (1999). Operas in English: A Dictionary. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-25310-2.
Further reading
edit- 11th Mississippi Infantry: A Brief History by Steven Davis – covers the history of the regiment
- 11th Mississippi Infantry – Company A – roster of the Greys and other companies in the regiment, including status as killed, wounded, etc.
- History of the Ole Miss Engineering School – includes information about the Greys, though its figure for the total killed appears to disagree with the roster linked above
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