James P. Norton, a private in Company C ("Alex Stephens Guards" from Mobile), 8th Alabama Infantry, was wounded in the leg on 2 July 1863 as his regiment charged upon the Union center at Gettysburg. He was picked up by the Federals and taken to a field hospital, and from there was moved to York, Pennsylvania. The surgeon in charge at York, Dr. Henry Palmer, refused to allow Confederates into the hospital wards, so Norton likely joined his comrades at the Odd Fellows Hall. It seemed that he would recover, but he eventually succumbed on 11 January 1864 (or was it in November 1863?). Having attended Mount St. Mary's College seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland before the war, Norton's body was removed to the college and interred there at the Grotto Cemetery. He was described as "a good soldier."

(sources: Civil War Voices from York County by Scott L. Mingus Sr. and James McClure, citing Vale of Tears: New Essays on Religion and Reconstruction, eds. Edward J. Blum and W. Scott Poole; Gettysburg's Confederate Dead by Greg Coco; and Col. Hilary A. Herbert's History of the Eighth Alabama, ed. by Maurice S. Fortin, in The Alabama Historical Quarterly, vol. 39, 1977.)