James Dixon Swindell
(Hyde County)
Featured Character – 1864 Confederate
Decline
General
Map of the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, Showing the Theatre of
Operations of the Burnside Expedition, Harper's Weekly,
March 1, 1862
Courtesy of the Museum of the Albemarle
Born
on Christmas Day 1839 to a family of
wealthy Hyde
County
slaveholders, James Dixon
Swindell married Judith Mann in 1859. Almost
two years into the war, Swindell
joined the “Stonewall Rifles,” also known as Company B, 17th
North
Carolina Infantry. The
regiment fought
mostly in eastern North Carolina,
taking part
in the Confederate efforts to seize Washington
in 1863 and New
Bern
in 1864. After the
Union Army crossed
the James River and attacked Petersburg, Virginia, the
17th North Carolina
Infantry along with the rest of Robert F. Hoke’s division reinforced
Robert E.
Lee’s besieged army. During
the Battle
of Chaffin’s Farm in Virginia on October 2, 1864, Union forces captured
Swindell. He spent
the rest of the
war imprisoned at Point Lookout, Maryland. After taking the oath of
allegiance on June
20, 1865, Federal officials released Swindell.
He returned to Hyde County and
worked as a
farmer. He also
owned a sawmill on the
shores of Lake
Mattamuskeet. James Dixon Swindell died
on March 16, 1911.