Many thanks to Brian and his wife for sending me this information on my ancestor J.Z. Allen. I hope to be able to post follow-up information if I can gather it.

Sketch of John Z. Allen
By Mrs. J.H. Drennan
John Z. Allen was born near Betty’s Ford, North Carolina, September 14, 1831. He was the great-grandson of John Beatty who emigrated from Scotland in 1749 and settled on the Catawba River at the splendid crossing which bears his name, and there established in 1750 Unity Presbyterian Church, the first church organized in Western North Carolina. His son, Thomas Beatty, served in the Revolutionary War, and John Z. Allen was Thomas Beatty’s grandson.
John Allen’s boyhood home was in a neighborhood rich with historical associations and he frequently spoke of his presence in Dr. Morrison’s home when Jackson came “a-courting Mary.” Several years before the war he came to this section on a business trip, met Elizabeth Jane Deas, married her, and decided to make Rock Hill, South Carolina his home.
At the outbreak of the war he was living four miles east of Rock Hill with his wife and two little girls. He answered the call of his country and served throughout the war with characteristic loyalty to what he considered his duty. With Longstreet’s Division, a part of the Army of Virginia, he took part in many of the great battles of the war: Manassas, Antietam, Gettysburg1 and Petersburg, but was never wounded. Bullets pierced his hat, his beard, his clothing, his blankets, and the life blood of a comrade spattered his face. With Longstreet’s Division he went to the relief of Vicksburg, but the city fell before they reached it2. After service in eastern North Carolina, he rejoined the Army of Virginia before the siege of Petersburg. For months the Confederates lay entrenched, besieged by Grant. John Z. Allen, with his brother-in-law, was in the salient which received the full shock of the “blow up.” He was frying bacon and the earth filled his skillet as he held it over the fire. Then followed that terrible hand-to-hand struggle which burned itself into his memory, men fighting like demons on the slippery sides of the terrible pit, and the sound of crunching steel against flesh and bone as they thrust the bayonet into the bodies of their foes, driving them back into the crater. For the next two days he lived on a pint of parched corn and on the third day, with his command, was captured and imprisoned for several months at Fort Steadman, N.J., being held there till after the surrender.
A record of John Z. Allen’s service to the Confederacy would be incomplete without tribute to the loyalty and self-sacrifice of Elizabeth J. Allen, who, with the help of a slave woman and boy, worked at home in the fields and made her own crops. She spent many nights sewing and mending for the passing soldiers who camped in her yard, and in every way in her power gave help to her country in this time of need.
In the terrible days of Reconstruction, they were true to their own people and John Z. Allen rode proudly with Hampton in his red-shirt triumphal procession into Rock Hill in 1876.
He lies buried in Catawba Churchyard, within sight of his home. His simple tomb, emblematic of his life and character, bears this inscription:
John Z. Allen
September 14, 1831
March 4, 1905
Company E, Seventeenth
South Carolina Infantry
Confederate States of America

Source: S.D. Barron Chapter, U.D.C., Rock Hill, S.C.
1. Enav’s Brigade was removed from Longstreet in 1862 and sent to Kinston, NC. From there they went to Charleston and then Jackson, MS. During the Battle of Gettysburg, the 17th SCVI was far and away from the northern battles.
2. Johnston’s attempt to relieve Vicksburg never really got off of the ground. His army, including the 17th SCVI came under siege in Jackson, MS for nine days before breaking out. The 17th served on the Canton and Livingston Rd.