To War and Back

Thomas Hickman lived near Calabash in Brunswick County and enlisted in the Confederate army along with his neighbors and several relatives, including his brother, Henry. Lt. Hickman survived the Fort Fisher battle and imprisonment. He was paroled on March 5, 1865. He walked home from New York after several weeks of surviving on handouts and sparse remnants of farm crops found in the fields. He arrived home at Hickman’s Crossroads in rags, so his mother made him a new suit of clothes from thread and material that she had spun and woven herself. After the war, Thomas was a farmer and a fisherman.