During the Civil War, North Carolina seceded from the Union. Captain Oscar R. Rand recruited willing men of all ages to join Governor Zebulon Baird Vance's 26th Infantry Regiment in the Confederate States Army. On a single day at the Battle of Gettysburg, during the assault known as Pickett's Charge, 13 of the 14 commanding officers died. Only 81 soldiers out of a unit of 880 would survive. With the men of the town gone, both schools in Holly Springs closed, and Holly Springs became a virtual ghost town. When the Union Army receded northward, Holly Springs lay in its path. Bands of marauding robbers known as "bummers" raided the area farms and homesteads, taking food, supplies, silver, clothes and anything of value.