Murder Of A Pitt County Civil War Hero

When he climbed into his buggy with Bryan Satterthwaite, the 12-year-old son of a neighbor, former Confederate Maj. Gen. Bryan Grimes could not have imagined what dreadful fate awaited him.

During the Civil War, the general had boldly challenged death many times in fierce battle and had survived virtually unscathed. He had no reason to expect he was about to die a bloody death at the hands of a cowardly assassin 15 years after the war had ended.

After the South had laid down arms and surrendered, Gen. Grimes returned to his plantation in a little settlement called Boyd’s Ferry in Pitt County not far from Washington, North Carolina.

To the locals, Gen. Grimes was a war hero and well respected. His life after the war had been quiet, peaceful and honest until he attempted "to rid his beloved neighborhood of two dishonest and bad men by prosecuting them in the courts that cost him his life."

It was the end of a hot summer day on August 14, 1880, in Washington, North Carolina, and the general had been in court most of the day. He had been gathering evidence against two brothers, Howell and W.B. Paramore.

Howell Paramore had "quarreled bitterly with Grimes over where a property line ran between parcels of their land."

After the dispute broke out, one of Gen. Grimes’ houses burned and some of his livestock died after drinking water from a plantation well. Gen. Grimes believed the Paramores had poisoned the well and he was preparing to take out warrants against Howell Paramore.

On the way home that fateful evening, Gen. Grimes and his young passenger rolled out of town across a bridge spanning the Pamlico River. He had once owned that bridge and operated it for toll until selling it to the state.

When they reached the road to Bear Creek, they veered off the main road and headed for the Bear Creek ford. The horse continued a brisk pace until it reached Bear Creek, three miles from home. Gen. Grimes reined the horses back to let them drink at the creek.

A puff of smoke belched from between two big cypress trees, followed instantly by the explosion of a shotgun. Gen. Grimes fell forward, mortally wounded. Young Satterthwaite swung to stare at the direction from which the shot was fired. He saw a figure backing away from the trees and into the swampy brush.

Satterthwaite quickly realized that the general was dying. He grabbed the reins and slapped the horses into a trot towards safety and help. The general was dead, a single buckshot cutting through his left bicep and into his heart.

The next morning, a group of Gen. Grimes’ neighbors armed with rifles and pistols gathered to begin a search of the banks of Bear Creek where Gen. Grimes had been ambushed. The informal posse soon found the exact location from which the murderer had fired.

Someone had prepared for the ambush by cutting a pathway for a hasty retreat. The presence of small footprints at the scene of the ambush ruled out any possibility of the Paramore brothers doing the shooting. They had much larger feet.

Several days passed before a possible suspect was found. Twenty-three-year old William Parker, the son of Jesse Parker whose small farm was nested near the Grimes’ plantation, had been seen near Bear Creek around the time of the murder.

Dick Chapman, "a colored turpentine-dipper," had seen young Parker in the woods near Bear Creek that day and had talked to him. Chapman told M.J. Fowler, a former "Little Washington" policeman, that the five-foot-six-inch tall Parker had told him he planned "to lie in wait for Gen. Grimes at Bear Creek" for the purpose of killing him.

Chapman said that after the killing, Parker approached him again asking him to swear that they were in the woods together on the day of the murder until sunset and had gone to Sam Dixon’s house and stayed all night.

Parker, who had a reputation of being fond of liquor, "ornery, sorry, and trifling" was arrested. His father immediately hired attorney James Evans Shepherd to defend his son.

During the trial Chapman became "vague" about his meeting with Parker on the day of the killing. He said that attorney Shepherd had told him "to be careful in talking to anyone." Shepherd denied Chapman’s claims and countered that it was Parker that had been threatened in jail by a detective who had pointed a pistol at him ordering him to confess.

The trial ended in a mistrial on December 18, 1880, when a juror got sick and was unable to perform his duty. Shepherd successfully argued for a change of venue claiming that Pitt County was too full of Gen. Grimes’ friends for Parker to get a fair trial. The change was granted, and Parker was scheduled to be tried in Martin County in June 1881.

In May, one month before Parker’s new trial began, Howell Paramore, who had disappeared from the area, was found in Cheraw, South Carolina. He had a bullet hole between his eyes, the victim of an apparent suicide.

His brother, W.B., was said to have later gone to prison in another state, convicted of poisoning wells.

In June a Martin County jury found William Parker innocent on all charges. Parker walked out of the court room a free man and left the area for some unknown place. Attorney Shepherd was later appointed to the state Supreme Court where he rose to Chief Justice.

During the war, men had died by the thousands around Confederate Major-General Bryan Grimes as he heroically led battles against Federal forces at Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, and the Shanandoah Valley.

In battle after battle the young North Carolina general was up front leading and defying death. Before the end of the Civil War, seven horses had been shot out from under him.

Bryan Grimes had been educated and traveled abroad prior to the war. He responded to defend the south as secession began and was nominated and elected to a seat in the "Secession Convention."

When North Carolina seceded from the Union on May 20, 1861, Grimes, at the age of 32, immediately resigned his seat in the convention to accept an appointment as a major in the Fourth North Carolina Infantry Regiment under Col. (later promoted to Brig.Gen.) George B. Anderson.

This regiment soon became known as the "Bloody Fourth." It was one of the most famous fighting units in the Confederate Army. Major Grimes was advanced to Lt. Col. in May 1862, and led his regiment into battle with 25 officers and 520 noncommissioned officers and men at Seven Pines.

In that battle, Lt. Col. Grimes was pinned beneath his horse when a cannon ball took the animal’s head off. Seeing their commander laying in a bloody mess, his regiment thought he was dead and began to falter. Lt. Col. Grimes raised his sword and shouted "forward, forward," encouraging his troops on.

Lillie Archbell reported the results of the battle in The Carolina and Southern Cross, "The description of the carnage is almost unparalleled in the annals of war."

On June 18, 1862, Lt. Col. Grimes was appointed full colonel commanding the Fourth Regiment.

After the battle of Mechanicsville, Gen. Anderson complemented the Fourth Regiment, saying "although small in numbers, Col. Grimes and his regiment was the keystone of my brigade."

At Cold Harbor, Col. Grimes led the victorious charge of the Fourth Regiment, carrying the colors on horseback until his horse was killed under him. His regiment fought with "desperate valor" at Chancellorsville. This was one of the few times during the war when his troops battled with bayonets, "never firing a gun."

In this charge, "Col. Grimes' sword was severed by a ball, and his clothing was perforated in many places. A ball was embedded in his sword belt and scabbard, and he received a severe contusion on the foot."

The regiment had 46 killed and 57 wounded, out of 327 officers and men carried into action. Col. Grimes and his men were the first Confederates to enter Gettysburg, driving the Federals out of town and capturing more prisoners than were Confederates in Col. Grimes' entire command.

"Had Lee's army followed promptly, Gettysburg would not have sounded the death knell of the Southern Confederacy," complained The Carolina and Southern Cross.

After Gen. Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg, Col. Grimes was placed in the rear guard, protecting Lee’s retreating army. Col. Grimes seemed fated to "always occupy the post of danger in front of every advance and in the rear in every retreat"

In October of 1863, Col. Grimes "preferring to remain in active service in the field until peace and independence was secured," declined to represent the Second Congressional District of North Carolina.

When Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Ramseur was mortally wounded in Spotsylvania, Col. Grimes was placed in command of Gen. Ramseur’s division. He led the division in a successful counter attack on May 12, regaining most of the ground the Confederates had lost at "Bloody Angle."

This feat won him high praise from Gen. Lee. Later, after Gen. Junius Daniel was mortally wounded, he requested for Col. Grimes to be assigned his command. Col. Grimes was given the command and was promoted to Brigadier General June 5, 1864.

By the summer of 1864,Brig. Gen. Grimes was fighting under Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early in the Shenandoah Valley. The two generals were "generally victorious" until September 19, when the tide of battle changed to favor the Federals.

Again Brig. Gen. Grimes had his mount killed under him, and nearly every member of his staff was severely wounded.

On October 19, at Cedar Creek, they were once again defeated. Brig. Gen. Grimes made a desperate attempt to "stem the tide, exposing himself with an utter indifference to danger in his efforts to rally the panic stricken troops, and having two horses killed under him at this battle." Grimes was commissioned as Major-General the following February. His division held over three miles of the "trenches" at Fort Stedman.

After a "stubborn" fight there, the Confederacy was forced to withdraw. In a two-hour engagement, Brig. Gen. Grime's Division lost four hundred and seventy-eight officers and men. The North Carolina general was the only Confederate riding horseback throughout the battle, making himself a conspicuous target for enemy fire.

He courageously rode up and down the lines encouraging his men. In the early morning of April 9,1865, at Appomattox Court House, with the Confederate Army of northern Virginia in full retreat from Petersburg, General Lee once again called on his brave North Carolina general.

Gen. Grimes’ division (made up of mostly North Carolina troops) was hurried from the rear, where it had been covering the retreat, and placed in front of Lee’s retreat facing the Federal army. Gen. Grimes "attacked the enemy and drove them back nearly a mile, taking a great number of prisoners and several pieces of artillery.

This was the last effort of the expiring Confederacy." Even as Gen. Lee was preparing to surrender his army, Gen. Grimes' division continued to fight aggressively, unwilling to surrender.

It was at that time and place when Lee was surrendering that Gen. Grimes and his ragged gray North Carolina infantry earned the proud privilege of writing the legend of "Last at Appomattox."

During the confusion of Lee’s surrender, Grimes’ division continued and advanced on the Federals. Gen. Grimes had planned the last battle, and the North Carolina Brigade of Gen. W.R. Cox of Grimes' Division fought the last battle and fired the last volley at Appomattox.

Eight years after Gen. Grimes had been murdered, thirty-one-year old William Parker returned to town. He was drunk and more than willing to talk about the murder.

Some of the town folks gathered and listened to what he had to say. The overly plump Parker reminded the crowd that he had stood trial for murdering Gen. Grimes and that a jury had found him not guilty.

Therefore, Parker declared the law forbids any one to stand twice for the same murder. He told the group of townsmen that, although he held no "great animosity" toward Gen. Grimes, it was he that shot the man. Parker said he committed the murder for Howell Paramore for one hundred dollars cash, a saddle horse and a new suit.

As Parker finished talking, a town policeman who had joined the crowd of listeners stepped forward and agreed with Parker that a defendant could not be tried for the same crime twice. He reminded Parker that there was a law against public drunkenness. The policeman placed Parker under arrest and escorted him to the town jail at the rear of the fire house.

That night, Parker’s jail cell slammed open.

Before he could move, a group of masked men were inside shoving and beating him. Twelve to fifteen masked men drug the overly plump man with small feet out of the jail and into the darkness.

At about three a.m., a lookout on the bow of the boat Beta spotted something hanging by a rope from the bridge over the Pamlico, the same bridge across which Gen. Grimes had driven just before he was ambushed on the evening of August 14, 1880.

The craft backed water in the current and under the object that was dangling from the bridge. It was the body of a man hanging by his neck. A note was pinned on the front of his coat. It read three words: JUSTICE AT LAST.

The area in east Pitt County which in the 18th century was known as Boyd’s Ferry was changed to Grimesland in 1887 in honor of Gen. Bryan Grimes.

Ted Sampley contributed to this story. Sources: Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War, Carolina and the Southern Cross; The Daily Reflector; Dead and Gone, by Manley Wade Wellman, Dictionary of North Carolina Biography (volume 2); Generals in Gray - Lives of the Confederate Commanders, by Ezra J. Warner. Print quality photo of Gen. Bryan Grimes provided by Jim Bynum.