Storyline · 1855–1928
The Orange Guards, Hillsborough's volunteer company, went to war in 1861 and outlived it by decades. Formed in 1855 after a visit from Raleigh's Independent Guards, with sixty-two men under Dr. Pride Jones as captain, the company was incorporated by the General Assembly in 1859, which exempted members from jury duty and road work. On April 20, 1861 it left for Fort Macon, and as Company G of the 27th North Carolina it lost men at Sharpsburg and Bristoe Station. Old soldiers revived it in 1875 under Captain Halcott P. Jones, and nearly thirty men signed the roll to reorganize it in 1894. In 1928 the University of North Carolina Press published its Descriptive Book, edited by H. M. Wagstaff.
After a visit from Raleigh's Independent Guards on October 27, 1855, Hillsborough men formed a volunteer company of sixty-two called the Orange Guards, with Dr. Pride Jones as captain. Raleigh's Oak City Guards were guests at its second anniversary in October 1857, and on November 14 Hillsborough boys organized the Junior Orange Guards. The General Assembly incorporated the company in January 1859, exempting members from jury duty and road work. The Flat River Guards and Guilford Greys came for the fifth anniversary on October 1, 1860. By March 1861 it had published a roll of about forty active members, and on April 20 the company left for Fort Macon. As Company G of the 27th North Carolina it lost three killed at Sharpsburg in 1862 and seven at Bristoe Station in 1863. Alves Norwood, killed near Richmond in June 1864, was buried at Hillsborough on June 19. On September 18, 1875 old soldiers revived the company under Captain Halcott P. Jones. It got Springfield rifles in August 1877, paraded in uniform on October 30, and marked its anniversary about October 1, 1878. On June 7, 1894 nearly thirty men signed the roll to reorganize it. In 1928 the University of North Carolina Press published the company's Descriptive Book, edited by H. M. Wagstaff, with James Augustus Graham's war letters.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first.
People with a page of their own whom the dated events above name, those named most often first.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Civil War letters of James Augustus Graham, 1841 to 1908, printed in 1928 by the University of North Carolina Press, together with the descriptive book of the Orange Guards, Company G of the 27th North Carolina Infantry. The descriptive book registers the men of the company. Part of the library's Wall Local History Collection.
Autograph book kept by Daniel Lindsay Russell (1845 to 1908), governor of North Carolina from 1897 to 1901, as a member of the University of North Carolina class of 1863 to 1864. It carries the signatures of 70 schoolmates from the wartime classes at Chapel Hill, most of whom went to war, 1861 to 1863.
Francis Nash's history of Hillsborough in colonial and Revolutionary times, first published in 1903 and reprinted in 1953 by Edwards & Broughton with an index and a sketch of the author. Topics include the Regulator Insurrection of 1766 to 1771, the Revolution and local genealogy.
Anne R. Keene's history of the Cloudbusters, the baseball team of the Navy Pre-Flight School at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill during the Second World War, on which Ted Williams played in 1943. The chapters move from a batboy's trunk of keepsakes through the pre-flight training program to the players' lives after the war, and Keene's own family is part of the story. Published by Sports Publishing in New York in 2018, 340 pages with sixteen pages of plates.
William Edward Fitch's account of the Regulator movement and the Battle of Alamance of 1771, which his subtitle calls the first battle of the American Revolution, published by Neale in 1905 in a second edition. Hillsborough, the Orange County seat, was the scene of the Regulators' 1770 courthouse riot and of the hangings that followed Alamance. 307 pages with nine leaves of plates, folding maps and a portrait.
Ernest Dollar examines the mental toll of the Civil War's last weeks in North Carolina on Confederate and Union soldiers and on civilians, using letters, diaries and later accounts. After chapters on each group, the narrative follows the days from April 10 to early May 1865 as Sherman's army moved through the central counties, Chapel Hill and Hillsborough among them; an epilogue considers how the trauma colored later memory of the conflict's end. Published 2022, 265 pages.
Reviewed in Civil War Book Review (2023).
A congregational history of New Hope Presbyterian Church in Orange County, written by Barbara A. Murphy and published in 2006 by Chapel Hill Press. Chapters take up the five successive church buildings, the land itself, the ministers who served, the cemeteries, members who went to war, the church's organization, its music, gifts and memorials, and its outreach to the surrounding community. It also covers Presbyterian experience of the Civil War. 126 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Alex Albright's history of the B-1 band, the group of Black musicians drawn largely from students and graduates of North Carolina A&T who became the first Black sailors of the modern Navy to serve above the rank of messman, and the first of more than a hundred Black Navy bands in wartime. The band was posted to the Navy Pre-Flight School at Chapel Hill, the book's Orange County link. Published by R.A. Fountain in 2013, 194 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Numbered dispatches 59 through 67 from Governor William Tryon to the Earl of Hillsborough, with enclosures about the Regulators, whose protests broke into riot at Hillsborough in 1770. Reproduced by Adam Matthew Digital in 2019 from Colonial Office CO 5/302. The papers touch on the council and assembly, naval stores and trade, oaths, militia and provincial troops, judges, sheriffs and juries, voting, currency, Cherokee affairs, clergy, quitrents and land, and name officials such as Richard Caswell, Richard Henderson, Maurice Moore and Hugh Waddell.
Governor William Tryon's correspondence with the Earl of Hillsborough for the months from October 1768 to May 1769, just after Tryon marched militia to Hillsborough to protect the court from the Regulators. Adam Matthew Digital reproduced the file, Colonial Office CO 5/301, in 2019. Topics include legislation, Anglican clergy, soldiers' wages, sheriffs, land and quitrents, trade and currency, taxes and education, the Catawba and the boundary line, roads, a murder case, punishment and prison, and people such as Richard Caswell, James Hasell and John Rutherford.
Letters from Governor William Tryon to the Lords Commissioners in London, with enclosed legislation and the accounts of the ship Brigantine Fox, reproduced by Adam Matthew Digital in 2019 from Colonial Office file CO 5/300. They show the range of a governor's business: council appointments, judges and courts, assembly acts, cotton manufacturing, poverty, naval stores, rice, tobacco and indigo, currency, the Tuscarora, education, marriage, debt and customs. Hillsborough is among the places named, and people include William Johnston, Richard Henderson, Cornelius Harnett and Samuel Strudwick.
Stewart E. Dunaway's account of the Battle of Lindley's Mill, fought in September 1781 after the Loyalist David Fanning raided Hillsborough and carried off Governor Thomas Burke. Burke, Fanning and the Lindley family, whose mill gave the fight its name, are the people at its center, with the Revolutionary campaigns in North Carolina as the frame. Published in 2009.
Stewart E. Dunaway's transcription of letters exchanged between Jesse Benton and Thomas Hart from 1780 to 1790, concerning Hart's affairs at Hartford, his place at Hillsborough. The letters concern the economic and social conditions of Hillsborough in the eighteenth century and the Revolution in North Carolina. Self-published through lulu.com in 2009, 68 pages with illustrations and facsimiles, and part of the library's Wall Local History Collection.
Suzy Barile's account of Eleanor Hope Swain, daughter of the University of North Carolina's president, and Smith D. Atkins, the Union general whose troops occupied Chapel Hill in April 1865; the two married later that year. Published by Eno in Hillsborough in 2009, 237 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Each dated event above names its source, the place to start. For finding more on an event across newspapers, records and histories, see the research guide Follow an event across several accounts. Ask at the North Carolina Room of the Orange County Public Library for help with local sources.
Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “The Orange Guards, 1855–1928.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/orange-guards-storyline-1855/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
