John Wesley McElroy 1808 - 1886 (w.i.n.) Yancey Co NC Madison Co NC
John Wesley McElroy was appointed to the rank of brigadier general to lead the home guard in the area of Burnsville, NC, during the later part of the Civil War, when fewer and fewer men from the area were willing to continue fighting for the Confederate cause.
Mars Hill College professor and historian John A. McLeod,writing in From These Stones, cites a letter written 12 April 1864 by McElroy to Governor Vance:
"The county is gone up. It has got to be impossible to get any man out there unless he is dragged out, with but very few exceptions. There was but a small guard there, and all the citizens ran on the approach of the tories. I have a hundred men at this place to guard against Kirk, of Laurel, and cannot reduce the force; and to call out any more home guards at this time is only certain destruction to the country eventually." (page 64)