Captain Robert Allen Carter, Ancestor of Jodie Gee

 

At the age of 24, Robert Allen Carter was the first volunteer in the " War Between the States" in Stanley County, North Carolina. The date was May 5th 1861, fifteen days before North Carolina seceded on May 20, 1861.  Bob, as he was called, was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant on February 28, 1862 and served in the first company of volunteers.  One month and 24 days later on April 22, 1862,  he was transferred to the newly organized 42nd Regiment, Company C, at Salisbury, North Carolina and was commissioned 1st Lieutenant.  He was promoted to Captain June 3, 1864, at the Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia.  The 42nd also fought at the Battle of the Crater in Petersburg, Virginia, and at Fort Fisher in Wilmington, North Carolina.   There’s a story from the diary of Captain Carter’s daughter about a sword and scarf given to him by his men that had been taken from the body of Captain Julius Bassett, a fallen enemy.  Captain Carter draped the body with his own sash and marked the grave with his sword.  In 1886 Bob wrote the governor of Connecticut, the letter was published, and soon he was in contact with Bassett’s family, who had never known what had happened to him.  The sword and  sash were returned; and in appreciation, the family sent Carter a gold-headed ebony walking stick .  On the gold head was engraved "Captain Robert A. Carter from the family of  Captain Julius Bassett”.  When a daughter was born to Carter in 1888, her middle name was Bassett in honor of the fallen Federal Captain.  The walking stick is now in the Raleigh, NC Archives.  Robert Allen Carter  was the father of Lilly Carter Hoffman, grandmother of Jodie Gee.