William Pinkney Inman (1839-January 1865) was a Confederate soldier who served in the 25th North Carolina Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. He deserted the Confederate States Army after being wounded at the Battle of the Crater, only to be shot by the Confederate Home Guard just 4 miles away from his home near Cold Mountain, North Carolina.
Biography[]
William Pinkney Inman was born in Canton, Haywood County, North Carolina in 1839, the brother of Lewis, Joshua, James, Joseph, and Daniel Inman. Raised near Cold Mountain, Inman became a woodworker, and, in 1861, he fell in love with the preacher's daughter Ada Monroe after she and her father moved to Canton from Charleston, South Carolina. Inman and his brothers enlisted in the Confederate States Army on 29 June 1861, and he was assigned to Company F, 25th North Carolina Infantry Regiment. He was wounded at the 1862 Battle of Malvern Hill, and he and one of his brothers attempted to desert the Army of Northern Virginia on 5 September 1862, just before the Battle of Antietam; they returned to their unit on 19 November 1862 and were eventually pardoned for the offense. Inman was shot in the neck during the 1864 Battle of the Crater, and he was sent to convalesce in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he received a letter from Ada and became motivated to return home rather than return to the front. He once again deserted the Confederate army on 11 October 1864, trekking on foot through North Carolina and towards Cold Mountain. Along the way, he made the acquaintance of Reverend Solomon Veasey, who joined him in his trek to Cold Mountain after he was banished from his congregation for impregnating a Black woman; Inman had previously prevented him from killing the pregnant woman and had tied him up in town for his congregation to judge. Inman and Veasey were given shelter by a farmer, Junior Taylor, who held a party at which Inman, Veasey, and Taylor's wife and her three female friends got inebriated and began to drunkenly fornicate with each other. This was interrupted when local Confederate Home Guard officer Hank Templeton and his subordinates Ezekiel Sinkler and Silas Adair arrived to arrest Inman and Veasey, having been tipped off by Junior. The two men were taken captive and forced to march with escaped slaves and other deserters until a Union cavalry patrol spotted the party; the Union soldiers shot the Confederate soldiers, but not before Templeton shot Veasey dead. Inman was left for dead, and he was ultimately rescued by an elderly hermit woman who nursed him back to health in the woods and provided him with supplies. He carried on his way to Cold Mountain, and, along the way, he rescued the widow Sarah from three starving Union soldiers who attempted to rape her and steal her farm animals for food.
In January 1865, Inman finally reached Cold Mountain, encountering Ada in the woods as she hunted with a shotgun. The two reunited, and - despite having hardly gotten to know one another before the war - they fell deeper in love and exchanged informal marital vows before consummating their love. The next day, Inman, Ada, Ada's friend Ruby Thewes, and Ruby's father and fellow deserter Stobrod Thewes set out for their homes in Canton, only for the local Home Guard commander Raymond Teague and his subordinates Philomon Jarret, Gawen Amos, and Charlie Bosie to confront the party, whose location they had discovered from the tortured musician Georgia White. Teague, who was jealous of Monroe's love for Inman, was resolved to punish her for harboring a deserter, but she insisted that a reckoning would come after the war. Teague said that their reckoning would come then, and, as he prepared to shoot Inman dead, Ruby shot Jarret dead, starting a shootout. In the ensuing gunfight, Inman was able to shoot Teague and most of his posse members dead, but, as he confronted Bosie, both men shot each other. Inman was fatally wounded, and he was able to walk back towards Monroe before collapsing and dying in her arms. Some time later, Ada gave birth to a daughter, Grace, the result of her and Inman's one night of love.
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