19 Facts About Bryan Grimes

Bryan Grimes was a Confederate military officer during the American Civil War.

Bryan Grimes fought in nearly all of the major battles of the Eastern Theater.

Bryan Grimes led the last attack of that army not long before its surrender to Union forces at Appomattox Court House on the morning of April 9,1865.

Bryan Grimes attended school in Nash County and an academy in Washington, North Carolina, before attending a noted private school in Hillsborough.

Bryan Grimes, at the age of fifteen, enrolled in the University of North Carolina, where he was a member of the Philanthropic Society.

The couple had four children, one of whom, Bryan Grimes III, died in childhood.

Bryan Grimes resigned from the commission after the passage of the Ordinance of Secession and joined the Confederate Army as the major of the newly formed 4th North Carolina Infantry on May 16,1861.

Bryan Grimes was promoted to lieutenant colonel on May 1,1862, and fought at the Battle of Seven Pines, during which he was wounded when his injured horse fell on top of him on May 31.

On June 19,1862, Bryan Grimes was promoted to the rank of colonel and given command of the 4th North Carolina Infantry, now part of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Bryan Grimes returned to his regimental command before the 1863 Chancellorsville Campaign, where he was wounded again, this time in a foot, on May 3.

Bryan Grimes was in charge of the rear guard during a part of the army's retreat into Virginia following the three-day battle.

On February 15,1865, Bryan Grimes was promoted to major general, the last man appointed to that rank in the Army of Northern Virginia.

Bryan Grimes served in the trenches surrounding Petersburg and joined Robert E Lee's retreat to the west that ended when the way was blocked by Federal columns near Appomattox Court House.

Bryan Grimes led an attack that temporarily cleared Federals from the Lynchburg Road, briefly opening up a possible route of escape for a portion of Lee's army.

Bryan Grimes was pardoned by the US government on June 26,1866.

Bryan Grimes subsequently moved back to Grimesland in January 1867 and resumed farming.

In 1880, Bryan Grimes was ambushed and killed in Pitt County, North Carolina, by a hired assassin named William Parker, presumably to prevent him from testifying at a criminal trial.

Bryan Grimes had taken part in an attempt to deport immigrants, and was killed by their hitman.

However, a number of years later Parker returned to the area drunk and boasted of his killing Bryan Grimes but winning acquittal.