John A. (John Alexander) Sloan

Born in 1839, he was the son of Greensboro merchant Robert M. Sloan and grew up in a family closely tied to the city’s early history. Archival records from Greensboro identify him as the John Sloan who later became commanding officer of the Guilford Grays, Company B of the 27th North Carolina Regiment.

He is best remembered for Reminiscences of the Guilford Grays, Co. B., 27th N.C. Regiment, published in 1883. In that book, he wrote from memory and from notes he kept during the war, creating a firsthand account of camp life, marches, battles, and the experience of serving with a local company drawn from Guilford County.

For modern readers, his importance lies less in a long literary career than in the immediacy of that memoir. He died in 1886, but his book remains a valuable personal narrative of the Civil War and a record of one North Carolina unit as seen by a participant.