I was in the Brest work during the whole engagement doing my Best to Beat you but I hope that You and I will never again meet face to face Bitter enemies on the Battlefield. “I was astonished to hear from the prisoners that you was colour Bearer of the Regmt that assaulted the Battrey at this point the other day…. It wasn’t until after the battle of Secessionville that they learned they had been on opposite sides of the same battlefield. The Union troops captured a Confederate skirmisher who told Alexander that his brother was operating in the same area as the Federal Army. The Union Army was trying to make South Carolina pay for its rebellion and the attack on Fort Sumter the previous year. (Wikipedia)Įventually, Alex and the 79th New York landed on James Island, South Carolina, just outside of Charleston. The forests and fields where the Battle of Secessionville took place. The two exchanged letters for the duration of the war. Each knew the other joined the enemy cause because they corresponded with one another regularly. When fighting broke out between the states, the men each attended to their duties as citizens of their respective countries.Īlexander joined New York’s 79th Highlander Infantry Regiment while James enlisted into the 1st South Carolina Battalion. Alexander stayed in New York while Joseph became a stone mason in Charleston, South Carolina. Alexander and James Campbell made the transatlantic crossing together from their native Scotland, but they didn’t settle in the United States together. Civil War pitted “brother against brother,” but at least in one case, such a fight actually happened. As they moved through the haze of smoke and bullets that day, they knew was the one time they didn’t want to see one another.Īlexander and James Campbell were fighting on opposite sides of the battle.
They had come to America less than two decades prior, and each had come to love his new homeland. On an early June morning in 1862, two brothers from Scotland were fighting for their lives and their adopted homeland on a South Carolina battlefield.
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