29 AUG 1829 • Mecklenburg, VA – 27 FEB 1905 • Vance County, North Carolina

Information complied by Carol Bumpass. John Lewis is her second great-grandfather.

When John Lewis Poythress and his twin brother John Lewis were born on August 29, 1829, in Mecklenburg, Virginia, their father, Edward, was 31, and their mother, Mahala, was 26. He had three sons and eight daughters with Tabitha Ann Nunn between 1856 and 1881. He died on February 27, 1905, in Vance, North Carolina, having lived a long life of 75 years.

Civil War Service: John Lewis Poythress joined Company 4, 14th Regiment Virginia Volunteers (Chambliss Grays), as a Private on May 12, 1861, at age 30. His occupation at the time was listed as “Overseer,” and his home was in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. He traveled 172 miles from his home to Richmond, Virginia, the place of muster-in. The 14th Regiment, Virginia Infantry, was organized in May, 1861, and entered the Confederate service at Richmond in July. Its companies were recruited in the counties of Amelia, Bedford, Fluvanna, Chesterfield, Halifax, and Mecklenburg. The regiment was brigaded under Generals Armistead, Barton, and Stuart. It fought with the Army of Northern Virginia from Seven Pines to Gettysburg, served in North Carolina, then saw action in Drewry’s Bluff. The 14th participated in the long Petersburg siege north of the James River and ended the war at Appomattox. In June, 1862, it contained 449 men, reported 12 killed, 57 wounded, and 6 missing at Malvern Hill and 7 wounded during the Maryland Campaign. Of the 422 engaged at Gettysburg, more than twenty-five percent were disabled. The regiment sustained 71 casualties at Drewry’s Bluff and lost many at Five Forks and Sayler’s Creek. Only 7 officers and 49 men surrendered on April 9, 1865. Pvt. Lewis was hospitalized as being “sick” on several occasions during his service. Later in his life, he applied for his soldier’s pension from the State of North Carolina. In the application, he stated that, “he has suffered for many years with brachial trouble, and was completely disabled to labor.”