Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 4.djvu/596

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558
CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.

with his regiment by the Federal troops. After his exchange his regiment participated in numerous battles and in the engagements at Charleston, S. C., Savannah, Ga., and the capture of Plymouth. After the latter campaign he was ordered to Petersburg with his regiment and took part in some of the most desperate combats of the war in the vicinity of that place. He was severely wounded in the head at the battle of Petersburg, and after recovering and joining his regiment he was ordered with his regiment to Chaffin’s Farm, where he was shot through the thigh at the battle of Fort Harrison, another ball cutting through his hair as he stopped to care for his wound. Being captured by the enemy, he was taken to hospital at Fortress Monroe and afterward imprisoned at Old Capitol prison, Point Lookout and Fort Delaware until June 1, 1865. After his return to North Carolina, he became associated with the Alamance cotton mill, built and owned by his father, and in 1868 was interested in the building of the Carolina cotton factory, and is still a part owner in each of these pioneer factories. In 1880 he and his brother built the celebrated Bellemont mills near Graham, he now being its sole owner and also sole proprietor of the Oneida mills at Graham; a partner in the Altamahaw mill, a stockholder in the E. M. Holt plaid mill at Burlington, in the Asheville cotton mills at Asheville, N. C., Mineola manufacturing company at Gibsonville, N. C., and other cotton mills. His business also includes banking and agriculture, his celebrated Alamance and Oak Grove farms being devoted to the breeding of standard horses, cattle and sheep, and are the most famous in the South. The business career in which he has been instrumental in achieving the great commercial victories of the South in cotton manufacture, has been marked by the characteristics of the family, of which he is a prominent member, shrewd and successful management, and generous and humane regard for his humbler associates in industry. In the busy life that L. Banks Holt leads, in all the intelligent and well-direct ed efforts that he puts forth to build up the agricultural interest, the manufacturing, the stock raising and the other interests of his State, there is no desire on his part to impress his individuality either on his friends or the public generally. On the contrary, Mr. Holt is a gentleman of retiring disposition, and what he does to win