New Focus on Mystery Officer

Until recently, few details were available on Adjutant Junius B. French from the 23rd North Carolina, who was mortally wounded during the fighting on July 1. He first appeared as the acting adjutant in the official report for Chancellorsville. The report for Gettysburg noted that he was mortally wounded. Because he served with the regiment for such a short time, his complied service record adds almost no additional information. Some further sleuthing has uncovered many additional details on this mystery officer.

 French has a detailed biography in John Lipscomb Johnson, The University Memorial: Biographical Sketches of the Alumni of the University of Virginia Who Fell in the Confederate War (Baltimore, MD: Turnbull Brothers, 1871), 485-487. Junius Butler French was born in Virginia in 1837. During his early years, he live in Washington, D.C., Brooklyn, New York, and Texas. French enrolled in law school at the University of Virginia in 1859. Two years later he took up the study of law with a judge in Charlotte, North Carolina. During the following year, the young Virginian opened his own practice.

At the outbreak of war, he joined the 1st North Carolina regiment and served at the battle of Bethel. French later served briefly in another Tar Heel regiment. Just prior to Chancellorsville, he took the position as adjutant of the 23rd North Carolina.

The source also adds several additional details on the lieutenant's  death at Gettysburg. The former University of Virginia law student suffered horribly when his foot was "shattered by a ball" as he was "urging his men forward" from Oak Ridge into town on the first day of the battle. While lying on the field, French was "struck with two other bullets, one of which entered the thigh, and ranging upward penetrated his abdomen." The injuries proved so severe that the young officer died "at day break" on the following day.