Brigadier General James Johnston Pettigrew - he dropped the James for most purposes - was regarded in North Carolina as versatile almost to the point of genius. A superior officer judged him capable of assuming the responsibilities even of Lee himself, should events make it necessary, although he had never attended a class in professional military tactics. His early education by private tutors at the spacious family estate of Bonvara, in coastal Tyrrell County, North Carolina, was aimed at a professional, not a military career. But his comprehension was keen and his capacity for acquiring new information apparently inexhaustible. The peaceful homestead where he spent his early years overlooked the blue waters of Lake Scuppernong, and the plantation extended along the Scuppernong River, from which the luscious Southem grapes, with their rare bouquet, take their name.

Pettigrew was a slender, handsome man of quick gestures and prompt decisions, with shining black hair and mustache and a dark complexion denoting the strong Latin strain of his French ancestry. His black eyes were sharp and penetrating. Now a soldier at the age of thirty-five, he had already achieved recognition as author, diplomat, lawyer, linguist, and legislator.

His marks were the highest that had ever been made at the University of North Carolina, which had graduated many eminent scholars and men distinguished in national and state affairs. A graceful, athletic youth, he had led his class at Chapel Hill in fencing, boxing and the singlestick, as well as in mathematics, the classical languages, and all the other liberal arts courses.

Pettigrew had received distinction from the start. When he delivered the valedictory address at the graduation exercises in 1847, the silverhaired President of the United States, James Knox Polk, had by chance returned to visit his alma mater, where he, too, had won high scholastic honors. Polk was accompanied by a fellow alumnus, Secretary of the Navy John Young Mason, and by Captain Matthew F. Maury, the distinguished naval hydrographer and meteorologist, who was then engaged in establishing the National Observatory and Hydrographic Office, and was launching into his career of oceanography and the preparation of his great work, The Physical Geography of the Sea. Before the commencement events, these three looked in on the final examinations in mathematics and astronomy, and were so impressed with young Pettigrew's proficiency that they invited him to return with them and become an instructor in the Naval Observatory. There he also worked as a teacher in the Nautical Almanac Office.

The ardor of his devotion to the cause of the Southern people was a revolt, no doubt, from association with his cantankerous uncle, James Louis Petigru, dean of the Charleston, South Carolina, bar. When Johnston Pettigrew decided to take up law, he studied for a time in Baltimore and then entered his uncle's office, where the shingle was confusing because the contentious senior preferred the shorter version of the family's Huguenot surname.

After obtaining his license to practice in South Carolina young Pettijew departed to study civil law in Germany. He traveled extensively, became proficient in French, German, Italian and Spanish, with a reading knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic, and spent seven years abroad writing and in diplomatic service.

Pettigrew sensed the approach of hostilities between the states. Late in 1859, as a lawyer in Charleston, he entered a rifle company and soon became its colonel. His command of a North Carolina brigade resulted from the fortuitous circumstance that he was recognized on the Raleigh raiload station platform as he traveled to Richmond with South Carolina troops. Delay in mustering his Charleston regiment into the Confederate service caused it to disband, so that the men might enlist with other units. The impatient Pettigrew enlisted as a private in Hampton's Legion, which was heading for the front. Word passed among his North Carolina friends that he had been seen going to battle without even a corporal's stripes. Almost in a twinkling he was elected colonel of the 22nd North Carolina Regiment, then stationed at Camp Ellis near Raleigh.

An officer who tented near him for several months described him: "He was quick in his movements and quick in his perception and in his decision... His habit was to pace restlessly up and down in front of his tent with a cigar in his mouth which he never lighted... As gentle and modest as a woman, there was [about him] an undoubted capacity to command, which obtained for Pettigrew instant obedience." He was "courteous, kindly and chivalric," and "unfailingly a gentlemen."

When he was offered a brigadier generalship he declined it. But both President Davis and General Joseph E. Johnston had noticed Pettigrew and the offer was renewed with more emphasis in the spring of 1862. Pettigrew commanded a brigade in the early part of the campaign at Yorktown. He was left for dead on the Fair Oaks battlefield and his loss was mourned in Richmond and Raleigh. But he recovered consciousness in a Federal prison camp and was exchanged, to find that his brigade had been assigned to his fellow Carolinian, Brigadier General Dorsey Pender. A new brigade was formed for Pettigrew, which he led on the North Carolina coast and at Gettysburg.