Originally broadcast on August 11, 1995 - In part 50 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson profiles the prolific career of Confederate Brigadier General James Henry Lane.
#50 – General James H. Lane
In the Civil War, generals led by example. This was especially the case with brigade commanders, who were expected to be with their regiments in the thick of any action. The mortality rate among brigadier generals was understandable high. The instances of gallantry were even more so. Among those illustrious brigadiers was a two-fisted, vigorously human leader named James Henry Lane.
He was born in July, 1833, at Mathews Courthouse, Virginia (on the Chesapeake Bay between the Rappahannock and York rivers). Lane graduated with honors in the Virginia Military Institute Class of 1854. He took additional studies at the University of Virginia before returning to VMI as an instructor in mathematics. Just before the advent of civil war, Lane joined the staff at the North Carolina Military Institute in Charlotte.
He answered the initial call to arms in 1861 and entered service as major of North Carolina’s first infantry regiment. That autumn, he was unanimously elected colonel of the 28th North Carolina. One soldier commented: “Everybody likes Lane. He is a little man, but he has a big soul.” The colonel with his engaging personality, intense eyes, long black beard, and blue kepi cap with bands of gold braid, soon became a familiar figure in the Army of Northern Virginia.
In the Seven Days Campaign of 1862, Lane’s unit had the sad and singular distinction for that war of three brothers killed at the same time and in the same place. The regiment soon became part of General “Stonewall” Jackson’s command and saw action at Cedar Mountain and Antietam. On November 1, Lane received promotion to brigadier general and command of an all-North Carolina brigade of five regiments.
Some of the luster the brigade gained the next month at the battle of Fredericksburg faded five months later at Chancellorsville. It was Jim Lane’s soldiers who mistakenly fired the volley that mortally wounded Stonewall Jackson. Lane was regretful but not apologetic. After the battle he stated: “Never have I seen men fight more gallantly and bear fatigue and hardship more cheerfully.”
In the now-famous Pickett-Pettigrew Charge at Gettysburg, Lane lost 500 men – half of his command. The North Carolinians continued thereafter to maintain their endurance and hard-won reputation. They were in the fighting at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, the long siege of Petersburg, and on the death-march to Appomattox. Lane was wounded three times during the war and several times commanded a division in action.
After surrender, the Virginian went home to find his family in want and his property destroyed. He taught seven years in Virginia and North Carolina before going south to Auburn University. For the next twenty-six years, he was a professor of civil engineering at the Alabama school.
Lane also became a prolific writer, his articles for the publication Southern Historical Society Papers, being among the most perspective commentaries in existence on the Confederate army. In September, 1907, Lane died at the age of seventy-four. He is buried in Auburn.
One of his old veterans paid him this tribute: “General Lane was all that a true soldier could be upon a battlefield. Nothing could excite him and when he put his troops in battle he always went with them….Miraculously escaping a mortal wound, he passed through as many battles as any person in the Confederate army.”
A final reason exists for calling attention here to Jim Lane. Everyone connected in any way with Virginia Tech should feel a kinship to the soldier-educator. He spent a short tenure as a professor at the Blacksburg school, but his many contributions are not forgotten. The oldest academic building on campus is still called Lane Hall.
