Book excerpt: The 43rd Alabama Infantry Volunteers were mustered into the Confederate States Volunteer Army in the spring of 1862. The companies moved from their homes throughout Alabama and formed their regiment in Mobile, Alabama. Archibald Gracie, a New Yorker by birth, European-educated, and a graduate of West Point, raised the regiment and served as their commander. General Gracie led the 43rd through their training and into war in Kentucky. They fought in Tennessee, the Battle of Chickamauga, and Virginia. They met the enemy along the river at Chester's Station, Drewry's Bluff, and Hatcher's Run while protecting the Southern capital at Richmond. The regiment saw demoralizing service while in the trenches of the besieged city of Petersburg for almost eight months. General Gracie himself died upon the battlement in Petersburg, killed by enemy fire while he observed their positions. In the spring of 1865 they lost their regimental flag in an encounter at Hatcher's Run. They were with Lee and the Confederate Northern Army of Virginia when they surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The story of the 1,260 Alabama men that were once part of the regiment is told here with the unit history and soldiers? individual military records.