L. O'B. Branch - Raleigh, North Carolina

At the southwest corner of Hillsborough and Dawson in Downtown Raleigh

L. O'B. Branch. Full name: Lawrence O'Bryan Branch. Also not one of my best pictures (granted, it was definitely one of the first pictures I took when I initially conceived the idea for this blog). Anyways, Branch was born on November 28, 1820, in Enfield, North Carolina, the youngest of six children. I initially thought he was a bit of an obscure character, as I couldn't find a lot of online-based sources discussing his biography. But I was wrong! This post ended up being pretty fun to research! However, I'll be using some book sources to support my discussion, and they are cited as the following:

• The Battle of Hanover Court House: Turning Point of the Peninsula Campaign, May 27, 1862, by Michael C. Hardy
• Letters of Lawrence O'Bryan Branch, edited by A.R. Newsome (when I cite the pages for this one, it's the page number of the larger journal, not of this specific article)
• The Public and Military Career of Lawrence O'Bryan Branch, by James Shober Brawley (this is a dissertation/thesis, so it's going to be hard to find outside of UNC)

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Lawrence Branch soon moved to Tennessee, and lived there until his father's death in 1827. Since his mother had passed earlier in 1825, he was taken under the care of his uncle, Senator John Branch of North Carolina, according to his father's will (Hardy, p. 40; Brawley, p. 4). Lawrence moved to Washington, DC, as his uncle was appointed the Secretary of the Navy by then President Andrew Jackson (now HE was a character). Fun fact: his uncle had to resign from the cabinet due to the Peggy Eaton affair; I can definitely write about that later (Brawley, p. 4).

While in DC, he was tutored by Salmon P. Chase, who would end up becoming the Union Secretary of the Treasury. According to The Battle of Hanover, he graduated from the Bingham School, and then the College of New Jersey (currently known as Princeton University) in 1838 (where he transferred to after starting his college education at UNC). It seems that his brothers were kicked out of UNC due to "testimony of a tutor to whom they had directed abusive language" and Lawrence himself was removed from UNC as well, though he was not involved in his brothers' affair (Brawley, p. 5). All three of them were sent by their uncle to Princeton as a result.

And here he is! (Source)

He moved to Florida and gained admittance to the bar there, after reading the law in Tennessee (Hardy, p. 40). He also became a soldier during the Seminole Indian Wars, but mainly served as an aide to General Robert Reid (Hardy, p. 40). After marrying Nancy H. Blount in 1844, he moved back to NC to practice law, and even became the president of Raleigh and Gaston Railroad Company in 1852. He and Nancy would end up having one son and three daughters together (Newsome, p. 44). He was elected as the Democratic representative of NC's 4th District in the US House of Representatives in 1854 (Hardy, p. 40). Remember, the current Democratic party looks NOTHING like it did in 1854. A lot of evolution occurred among the dominant political parties over the last 150+ years. He was nominated to be Postmaster General at one point, and even Secretary of the Treasury by President Buchanan, but he declined them both. He held that seat in the House of Representatives until the Civil War broke out. According to one of the letters he wrote his wife, he declined the Treasury Secretary appointment because the administration required a quick decision so the Senate can deliberate prior to adjourning for the Christmas season in 1860, and he would rather be able to consult his friends and family on deciding to take on that amount of responsibility and difficulty (Newsome, p. 79). With the several friends he discussed the opportunity with, it seems he agreed with the sentiment that he'd rather not vacate his seat in Congress during such a politically tense time; he could sense a potential dissolution of the Union.

Branch enlisted on May 1, 1861, as a private in the Raleigh Rifles (Hardy, p. 40). Soon after enlisting, he was soon promoted to be the State Quartermaster General (Hardy, p. 40) and the Paymaster of the NC state troops. I should also pause and remind my readers that this was a time before the US had a national army. Prior to WWI, troops had to be called for by the President from the states of the Union (or of the Confederacy, in this case). It's not too different from how the King of England in medieval times would call for troops for a war on France. This also meant that each state was responsible for quartering (ie, providing room and board) and paying their own troops. Anyways, my sources tell me he has a pretty decent rank associated with his Quartermaster position, one stating he holds a rank of Major General at this time (Hardy, p. 40) and another stating he's Colonel. This isn't a negligible difference (it's like a difference of  two ranks), but it's not something I can easily confirm among my sources.

Flag of the 33rd NC Infantry, which Branch led starting in 1861 (Source)

Branch decided he wanted more service in the field, so he resigned from his Quartermaster post and accepted command of the Thirty-third North Carolina Regiment (Hardy, p. 40), definitely becoming a Colonel with that command, on September 1, 1861. He got promoted to Brigadier General on January 17, 1862, and soon found himself defending New Bern against General Burnside (the guy who basically made sideburns popular and well-known as facial hair fashion), though he lost that particular battle (Hardy, p. 40). Afterwards, Branch became the commander of a newly created (and second) North Carolina brigade (Hardy, p. 40). This brigade consisted of the 17th, 18th, 28th, 33rd,  and 37th NC Regiments, and they were ordered to Virginia to join Maj. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill (part of Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's corps). Branch's brigade saw action at Hanover Court House, the Seven Days Campaign, Cedar Mountain, Second Bulls Run (or Second Manassas if you're truly Southern), and Harper's Ferry. Since this is supposed to be more of a biography rather than a military history, I'm not going into the details of these battles. The Hardy book I've been quoting is good for the Hanover Court House battle details, in particular.

It was at the Battle of Antietam (or the Battle of Sharpsburg if you're truly Southern) where Brig. Gen. Branch met his demise. He arrived via rapid march from Harper's Ferry to Sharpsburg (it's often described as a sprint), and helped Maj. Gen. Hill repel the Union forces, saving most of the Army of Northern Virginia. However, as the generals were conferring on what to do next, a Union sharpshooter took aim at the group and killed Brig. Gen. Branch. Frankly, considering the gun technology of the time, that's pretty f***ing impressive. He is one of six generals killed at the Battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg, 3 Confederate generals and 3 Union generals.

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William A. Blount, Lawrence Branch's father-in-law (Source)

That was a basic timeline of his life, but I'll comment a bit on his personality and his thoughts based on his letters edited by Newsome. While he was in Congress, Branch was a forceful speaker, a true Southern Democrat who thoroughly supported states rights, but rejected the extremist views that demanded Congress protect the institution of slavery (Newsome, p.45). He was also worried about how the Democratic Party would be split in half over how the government (particularly Congress) would involve themselves over slavery and slaveholders' affairs. He had hoped that slaveholders would see this as incentive to move to a territory and establish protective legislation and laws for slavery; history would show that would not be the case. He supported a proposal for the US to purchase Cuba from Spain (which was something that President Buchanan wanted) but it failed in Congress.

From his letters, he loved his wife very much, and they wrote and telegraphed each other often. He cared for the situation of his family, to the point that it saddened him to be away from his wife for so long if it meant their children could go to their school. In 1860, he wrote that his wife join him for the Christmas holiday in Washington, and she could be parted from her father for that time (he was in poor health for some time in Raleigh). I couldn't find letters after that, since he enlisted for the Civil War in May, 1861.