Captain John T. Levi

Levi's Battery, Thomas's Legion N.C. Troops

In May 1862 the Virginia legislature authorized a military organization known as the Virginia State Line. The function of the State Line was to provide a body of troops, under State control, for the defense of southwestern Virgina. It was much resented by Confederate officers and authorities who correctly perceived it as a refuge for draft dodgers, Unionists, and others who sought to avoid active service with regular Confederate troops. The State Line was abolished in February 1863. On April 1 many of the men who had served on Company A, Jackson's Battalion Light Artillery, Virginia State Line enlisted in a reorganized company known as Captain John T. Levi's Battery Light Artillery and this unit was subsequently attached to Thomas's Legion. Levi had served as a second lieutenant in the State Line and was apponted captain when the company reorganized. He appears to have been present or accounted for until February 1864 when he was court martialed and cashiered for unspecified reasons. In August 1864 Levi's Battery (by then known as Barr's Battery, Virginia Light Artillery) was removed from Thomas's Legion and served the remainder of the war as an independent company.
Image: Copy print of ninth-plate ambrotype in possession of the author.

North Carolina Troops 16: 139-40, 459. Lee A. Wallace, A Guide to Virginia Military Organizations, 1861-1865 revised 2nd edition (Lynchburg: H.E. Howard, 1986), 212-217.