USA > Tennessee > Shelby County > Memphis > The Old Guard in Gray. Researches in the Annals of the Confederate Historical Association. Sketches of Memphis veterans who upheld her standards in the war, and of other Confederate worthies.. > Part 4
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ture a horse apiece, but found there were a good many loose Federal soldiers around, as well as loose horses. The soldiers were taken in as well as the horses. To the surprise of the Judge Advocate, while he was careering over the late battle field on a fairly good mount with which he had provided him- self, his familiar schoolboy name Tom was shouted about one hundred yards distant by a Federal officer. He rode at once to the officer and found Dr. Burdett, an old college friend, a Federal surgeon in charge of McCook's field hospital, with his wounded. The Judge Advocate received the surrender of the hospital, not refusing a nip of good French brandy offered by his old college friend.
About this time one of the four soldiers called the Judge Advocate's attention to a white flag in a bottom cornfield, quite dense in growing corn. With the four veterans the Judge Advocate marched to the white flag and found a regi- ment of Federals. The officer apparently in command an- nounced the regiment to be the Eighth Iowa Cavalry, that he was Major Istis, that their lieutenant - colonel was lying mortally wounded in the adjacent woods, and that their col- onel had left them. Confident that Wheeler's lines were close up, the surrender of the regiment was taken in due form and the wounded lieutenant colonel taken care of as well as could be done at the time; but it turned out that Wheeler's lines were not as close up as was thought at the time the surren- der was taken. The surrender was taken at about 1 o'clock P.M. The delay in appearance of the Confederate lines was so long that the Yankees began to murmur. This of course was dangerous to the Judge Advocate and his four veteran associates. One of the four was sent to find some command of Wheeler's and report the situation. In the meantime the Judge Advocate held on to the surrendered regiment with a stiff upper lip, but much trepidation, as he confesses. At a little after 6 o'clock p.M., Colonel Ross' Texas Brigade came up and settled the difficulty.
Judge Advocate Brown has always claimed that he got more than even with General MeCook for capturing him at Liberty, Ga.
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A joke is told of Hardee in connection with Judge Advo- cate Brown. When Hardee took command of the corps he found in it some brigades not satisfactory to him ou the day of battle. Hardee wanted only fighting brigades and regi- ments in his corps. He had been quito importunate and suc- cessful with the commanding general in getting rid of the inferior commands and necessarily putting them on the other corps commanders. But there was one brigade he had not rid himself of. He went again to the general in command of the Army of Tennessee and urged the general to exchange this brigade for one in another corps. The general replied with some heat, it is said, to the application, calling his atten- tion to the success he had achieved in getting out of his corps inferior commands, and telling him that he was as much bound to put up with poor soldiers as the other corps com- manders. Hardee, stumped by this very just reply to his application, is said to have answered as follows : " General, I am influenced somewhat in this proposal by humanity." " How is that ?" said the general. ilardee replied, "I am afraid, general, if that brigade is not taken from me my judge advocate will shoot all of them." Hardee did get rid of the obnoxious command.
Judge Advocate Brown was a great favorite with both Polk and Hardee. The former applied, when he left the Army of Tennessee for the Department of Mississippi, to Mr. Davis for permission to take him with him. This was refused, it being decided that he belonged to the corps, and not to the corps commander. The latter called him into his confidence when he was about to have a duel with Hood. He was one of the paroling officers at Trinity Church, Greens- boro, N. C.
After the war Judge Advocate Brown was conspicuous in recovering the liberties of ex-Confederates from the recon- struction measures. He had the singular fortune to first pre- sent in 1868 at New York the impolicy and oppression of reconstruction administration in the South to the Northern constituencies ; and also from the balcony of Peabody Hotel, at the request of the business men of Memphis, made the last
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speech in the drama of reconstruction. This was on the occa- sion of the celebrated MeEnery controversy in Louisiana. Captain Brown prepared the resolutions for the Memphis mer- chants. The resolutions and speech were sent to President Grant. Then followed quickly the withdrawal of Federal military authority from Louisiana.
Judge Brown joined this Association April 12, 1884.
BOLINER. PATRICK McHENRY, son of James and Ann Boliner, was born in Staunton, Va., September 14, 1831. His ancestors were of Revolutionary stock, and his grand- father Boliner was in the war of 1812. He is a nephew of the late John McCullongh, the tragedian, who was his moth- er's brother, they being the only two of the family who came over from Ireland, as far as he knows. The Mc in his name is for McCullough. In 1862 young Boliner, whose father had died in 1849, went to Fort Worth, Texas, and after work- ing a few years started to college at MeKenzie, where he was a student thirty years of age when the war began. When the news came of the firing on Fort Sumpter 300 young men dropped their books and rushed off for the war, Boliner among the rest. He says now that his class had a lesson ready in differential calculus that has never yet been recited. He enlisted in May, 1861, at Clarksville, Texas, in Company E, Ninth Texas Cavalry, and was in a brigade commanded by General McIntosh at the battle of Elk Horn, Ark., March 4, 1862, where both McIntosh and Ben McCulloch (no relative of Boliner) were killed; was in several engagements out West with the Indians. He came over with the regiment, without horses, with Price's army, and was in the battle of Corinth, on foot, October 4, 1862, and was severely wounded there. Later in the war his regiment became part of Ross' famous brigade, and he served in it under Jackson and For- rest until the surrender; was wounded at Dallas, Ga., and at Franklin, Tenn., by a sabre cut ; was captured at Spring Hill, but knocked the guard in the head and escaped the same night; never missed a fight, except when absent on account of wound. which was only a short time ; was paroled May 13, 1865, at Jackson, Miss. ; has taught school and been
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variously engaged since; has made Memphis his home for thirty years; never married. Joined this Association Octo- ber 9, 1894; became an active member of Company A, Con- federate Veterans, at once, and was with it at the reunion in Richmond June and July, 1896.
J. J. BROWN.
BROWN, J. J., born in Hardeman county, Tenn., January 24, 1840; removed to Fayette county when a boy ; joined a company of infantry in 1861, whose services were offered to the State but not accepted, as the quota desired was full. In November, 1861, he enlisted in Eldridge's Battery, made up from Fayette, Hardin and Wayne counties. At Nashville J. W. Eldridge was elected captain ; E. E. Wright and T. W. Jones first lieutenants; J. W. Mebane and Joe Williamson second lieutenants, and J. W. Phillips orderly sergeant, with
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a company roll of 12& men ; was ordered to report at Bowl- ing Green, Ky., ard assigned to Baker's Hill, an advanced position, which was occupied until the army fell back on Nashville. Then the battery and several siege guns block- aded the river several miles below Nashville and held the enemy's gunboats in check until the city was evacuated. At Murfreesboro the battery was assigned to Breckinridge's Di- vision. Arriving at Corinth the subject of this sketch was ordered to report to the colonel commanding cavalry at De- catur, Ala., with two guns of the battery ; remained on out- post duty with the cavalry until after the evacuation of Cor- inth, and then joined the other section of the battery at
Saltillo, Miss., which had taken an active part in the cam- paign around Corinth. The battery also took an active part in the Kentucky campaign, but was not engaged in the bat- tle of Perryville. After the army fell back to Knoxville the battery was ordered to Murfreesboro, where early in Novem- ber, 1862, it reorganized by electing E. E. Wright captain, J. W. Mebane first lieutenant, J. W. Phillips second lieuten- ant, and J. C. Grant third lieutenant; took an active part in the campaign around Murfreesboro; was not engaged in the first day's battle, but held in reserve under a hot fire ; was with Breckinridge in his desperate charge on the enemy's left on the 2d of January, 1863, where they lost Captain Wright and one-third of the company. The division went in 4000 strong and left 1800 on the field. The engagement lasted forty minutes.
About the first day of June, 1863, the division was ordered to Jackson, Miss., to reinforce General J. E. Johnston ; took part in the Vicksburg campaign; had a light engagement with a division of the enemy at Jackson, Miss., in July, 1863. About the 1st of September, 1863, was ordered to reinforce Bragg, near Chattanooga; was engaged in the battles of Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and Rockyface Ridge (or Dalton), Resaca, Lafayette, and Kenesaw Ridge, where Cap- tain Mebane was killed, having the top of his head blown off by an eight-inch Parrott shell while engaged in an artillery duel with the enemy. After Captain Mebane was killed Lieutenant Phillips was promoted to captain.
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About the 16th of June, 1864, was engaged in the light- ning bug fight at the dead angle. On the night of July 1. 1864, was engaged at Pine Moantain; July 4 at Peachtree Creek; July 20-22 at Atlanta ; also at Jonesboro, Lovejoy's station, Franklin and Nashville, Teun., and last but not least, at Spanish Fort, one of the approaches to the city of Mobile, in April, 1865. After the evacuation of Mobile the battery went up to Demopolis, where the men were given muskets, having left their guns in the fort ; were ordered over to Me- ridian, Miss., where the company surrendered. Ten of them not feeling disposed to do so, on that morning broke their muskets over a tree and left for Tennessee. Reaching La- Grange, Mr. Brown and some of his comrades surrendered and received their paroles in June, 1865. He has lived in Shelby county for the last thirteen years. He was in all the campaigns of his battery and in some awful close places, especially at Spanish Fort, where the Confederates were con- fronted by a force of perhaps ten to one, but he was never wounded. He became a member of this Association several years ago; is a member of Company A, Confederate Vete- rans, and was on the trip to Richmond last summer. He was married to Miss Belle Abernathy of Fayette county in 1871, and they have two daughters, Miss Irene Fowler, a graduate of Vassar College, and Miss Anna Belle A. Brown. The lat- ter is a " daughter" of Company A. Their home is at Buntyn, near this city.
BEECHER, EDWARD A., born in the State of New York in 1834. A few years after his father moved out to Loraine county, Ohio, and in co-operation with other Eastern men of congenial ideas formed the community of Oberlin. In the college of Oberlin Edward Beecher graduated before reach- ing his majority. After reading law under Salmon P. Chase in Cincinnati, casting aside forever the associations and teach- ings of childhood and youth, he turned his face southward, making for himself a place among a people of whom he had never perhaps heard a kind word. About the year 1856 he landed in Memphis. Under the late E. M. Verger and other lawyers of ability he passed an examination said to have
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been of an exceptional character. The late James Wicker- sham complimented the youthful member of the bar by mak- ing him a partner. Owing to a passionate love of the law, combined with what General Hood in later years called his matchless energy, an enviable degree of success crowned his efforts. Suddenly his onward and happy progress was checked; upon the secession of Tennessee duty pointed an- other way: he said that " A faithful discharge of duty is a strong foundation on which to build one's happiness."
He enlisted with Captain McDonald's Dragoons in 1861. In 1862 General Polk asked him to join his staff in the capac- ity of quartermaster, which he did, holding the position as a temporary one, as he thought ; for this, he wrote, was not his idea of military service. His peculiar power of overcoming obstacles, his " matchless energy and activity," rendered his services in this line so needful that his work seemed cut out for him. It was said of him that in moving the army, while acting as military superintendent of railroads, his powers of providing ways and means were almost limitless. He was, with the exception of a few months after his marriage, always in the field. The few months were spent in Macon busily occupied in the office of the Master of Transportation.
Letters of appreciation from his superiors were not lack- ing. One from Richmond offered a broader field, with the rank of colonel, which was declined. To be called an " honest quartermaster " was his distinction. In common with all soldiers of Tennessee, he shared an unbounded devotion to Generals Vaughan and Cheatham ; he wept over Preston Smith and was ever loyal to Joe Johnston. "With his comrades he believed that the Army of Tennessee led the military field in courage and endurance. Few Southern born men felt the fatal termination of the war as did this adopted son. He took up the pursuit of his profession at the end, but under such changed circumstances, owing to the terrible period of so- called reconstruction, that, although financially successful, the practice of it was never the same pleasure again. Major Beecher died in 1873 of pneumonia. He became a member of this Association September 9, 1869.
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DR. R. E. BULLINGTON.
BULLINGTON. R. E., was born in DeSoto county, Miss., the 2d day of April, 1847. His father was Dr. Edward Bul- lington, who came from Richmond, Va., many years ago; was a well known and highly popular citizen, and died of yellow fever at Hernando in 1878. When the war broke out R. E. Bullington was a mere boy, but he enlisted in Septem- ber, 1864, in Company K, Captain W. A. Rains, Eighteenth Mississippi Regiment, Colonel Alex. Chalmers, Rucker's Brig- ade, and saw eight or ten months' very arduous service. He first took part in the recapture of a wagon train near Flor- ence, Ala., which had been taken from the Confederates; was in an engagement at Cedar Grove, and next day was at the battle of Franklin. He was in various skirmishes on the raid to Nashville, and shared the hardships of the retreat of Hood's army from Tennessee, and came out with very little cloth-
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ing. At one time his company and Chalmers' escort was cut off and in the rear of the Federal army, but by hard riding for three days and nights and swimming Duck river they escaped. He was with the command on down to Selma, and participated in a sharp engagement there. After the sur- render he came through to Memphis and was paroled here. He lived for a time at Hernando and was in business ; mar- ried Miss Sallie Peete, daughter of Dr. J. S. Peete, near Ma- son, Tenn., December 30, 1869, and they have reared an inter- esting family of seven children. A year after marriage the young doctor, as he was to be, went off to college, and was graduated in 1872 with first honors, and returning began the practice of his profession. He lived one year at Humboldt, Tenn., and twelve years at Hernando, Miss. ; removed to Mem- phis in October, 1885, and has lived here ever since and been eminently successful. He became a member of this Associa- tion on the 13th of June, 1894.
BUCHANAN, J. W., first enlisted as a private in the Chickasaw Guards, a company organized by General W. F. Tucker, in Chickasaw county, Miss., in the fall of 1860. In January, 1861, this company, with other State troops, was ordered to Pensacola, Fla. ; served one month and returned home. This company was one of the first to offer its services to the State, and was ordered to Corinth about the 1st of April, 1861, when it, with other companies, formed the famous Eleventh Mississippi and went from Corinth to Lynchburg, Va., and was there mustered into the Confederate service ; from there went to Harper's Ferry. The Eleventh Missis- sippi, Second Mississippi, Fourth Alabama, First Tennessee (Colonel Turney) and Sixth North Carolina constituted Gen- eral Bee's Brigade at the first battle of Manassas. Only a part of the Eleventh Mississippi was engaged in this battle. His company did not get to the battlefield until the fight was over, being delayed on a train. Ile was discharged, on ac- count of a long spell of fever, in August, 1861, and returned home. Shortly after this he was elected captain of a new company, about the 1st of September, 1861. His company was ordered to Marion station, near Meridian, Miss., where
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the Twenty-fourth Mississippi Regiment was organized, with W. F. Dowd of Aberdeen as colonel. The regiment was ordered to Fernandina. Fla., where it remained until ordered to Chattanooga about the 1st of March, 1862. The regiment became a part of General S. B. Maxey's Brigade, and was ordered from there to Corinth, and reached there the day after the battle of Shiloh. The Twenty-fourth Mississippi Regiment became a part of the Army of Tennessee after this. In the Kentucky campaign it formed a part of Marsh Walker's Brigade, General Patton Anderson's Division, Har- dee's Corps, and was engaged in the battle of Perryville, this being its first regular battle. Just before the battle of Mur- freesboro the Twenty-fourth, Twenty-seventh, Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth and Thirty-fourth Mississippi Regiments became Walthall's Brigade, but was under command of General Pat- ton Anderson in the battle of Murfreesboro, General Wal- thall being absent on leave. On the promotion of General Walthall to Major-General, Colonel Sam. Benton, colonel of the Thirty-fourth Mississippi, was made brigadier-general, and was fatally wounded at Atlanta on the 22d of July, 1864, and lived only a few days. Colonel W. F. Brantly of the Twenty-ninth Mississippi was promoted to brigadier-general. Captain Buchanan was wounded at the battle of Jonesboro, Ga., the 31st of August, 1864, and was never able to return to his company. He was confined to his bed from this wound until July. 1868.
He had graduated at the University of Mississippi in 1860, and commenced the study of law before the war and during his confinement in bed from his wounds, and began the prac- tice in December, 1868. He was elected to the Mississippi Legislature in 1879 and again in 1881, and in March, 1882, was appointed circuit judge for the First District of Missis- sippi by Gov. Lowrey. In March, 1887, he resigned the office of circuit judge to take the position now held with the Kan- sas City, Memphis & Birmingham Railroad Company, and in January, 1888, he removed to Memphis.
BUFORD, SMITH, enlisted as a private in Company F, Thirteenth Mississippi, early in 1861. Served until the end
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of the war. He is a practicing physician at Raleigh, and is an active member of Company A, Confederate Veterans.
BUNCH, GEORGE H., Sergeant-Major Fifth Virginia, Army North Virginia ; enlisted April 9, 1861; paroled June 7, 1865. Admitted to the C. II. A. January 8, 1895.
BUTLER, A. R., private Company H, Fifteenth Arkansas Regiment ; entered service April 27, 1861, and paroled May, 1865. Proposed for membership by L. O. Rivers and C. G. Locke, and elected May 20, 1870.
CAMPBELL, D. A., enlisted August 19, 1862, in Company F, Second Kentucky Cavalry, John H. Morgan's command. Discharged January 8, 1865.
CAMERON, WILLIAM L., was a member of Company A, Young Guards, and afterward assistant paymaster in the Confederate States Navy. Served on the gunboat Savannah at Savannah ; on the gunboats Huntsville, Baltic and Nash- ville at Mobile, and was captured at Naura Hubber Bluffs and paroled there May 10, 1865. Admitted to this Associa- tion August 13, 1895.
CANNON, H. E., private Company A, Seventh Tennessee Cavalry ; enlisted May 16, 1861 ; was wounded while scout- ing around Lost Mountain and Powder Springs, Ga. ; paroled May 11, 1865. Admitted to C. H. A. June 1, 1895.
CARMICHAEL, J., chaplain Thirtieth Regiment Virginia Infantry ; entered service April 11, 1861; paroled July 5, 1865; was rector of Grace Church, Memphis, for several years, and took an active, heroic part in the relief of yellow fever sufferers in 1873; afterward returned to Virginia. Pro- posed for membership in this Association by R. J. Black and J. Harvey Mathes, and elected March 17, 1870.
CARPENTER, A. S., Orderly Sergeant Company B. Thirty- second North Carolina Regiment; enlisted May 20, 1861; was in D. H. Hill's and Rhodes' Divisions, Jackson's, Ewell's and Gordon's Corps : never missed a battle except when in prison ; paroled May, 1865.
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CAPT. W. W. CARNES, In 1852.
CARNES, WILLIAM W., was born September 18, 1841, at Somerville, in Fayette county, Tenn. Some years later his family moved to Memphis, and he passed his boyhood days in this city. He was the eldest son of General James A. Carnes, a prominent citizen of Memphis before the war, whose military title was due to his being brigade commander of the State militia, the rank held in recent years by his younger son, S. T. Carnes. " Will Carnes," as he was and is known, was appointed to the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis when fifteen years old, and was in the graduating class there when the secession of the Southern States caused him to send in his resignation, that he might be free to aid his native South- land in the conflict he believed to be inevitable. After a short period of service in the first organization and drilling of companies, while on staff duty at the headquarters of Gen-
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eral Gideon J. Pillow in this city, he was appointed by Gov- ernor Harris as Drill Master of Tennessee State troops, with the rank of First Lieutenant of infantry, assigned to Cheat- ham's Brigade at Union City, and attached to the Fifth Ten- nessee Regiment, commanded by Colonel Travis; was next appointed First Lieutenant of Artillery and assigned to Cap- tain (afterward General ) W. H. Jackson's battery of light artillery, at New Madrid, Mo. Captain Jackson was wounded at Belmont and Lieutenant Carnes placed in command of the battery. Upon Captain Jackson's return to duty he was made Colonel of Cavalry and Lieutenant Carnes succeeded him as Captain of Artillery early in 1862, when he was but twenty years of age. It was stated in The Confederate Veteran of June, 1895, published at Nashville, that " the youngest cap- tains of artillery in the Confederate army were W. W. Carnes of Memphis, John W. Morton of Nashville, Tenn., and Willie Pegram of Virginia." "I think," says the writer, "John Morton was the youngest of these three; but Captain Carnes had been commanding a battery some time before Morton was promoted from Lieutenant to the rank of Captain. Both were captains in active command of field batteries at twenty years of age."
Carnes' Battery was first attached to a brigade commanded by General Clarke, of Mississippi, till after the battle of Shiloh. Soon after, General Daniel S. Donelson was assigned to the command of a brigade of Tennessee troops in Cheat- ham's Division, and the battery thereafter served with that brigade under Gen. Donelson, and afterward under Marcus J. Wright, who succeeded Donelson.
The first important field service this battery saw was at Perryville, October 8, 1862. Carnes' Battery brought on the fight on the left and was very hotly engaged in an artillery duel for more than an hour. After being ordered back to refit and prepare for a hotter contest still, the battery (of four guns) was transferred rapidly to the extreme right with Polk's Corps. There, supported by the Eighth and Fifty-first Ten- nessee regiments, and Wharton's regiment of Texas Cavalry, they attacked the extreme left of the Federal line, throwing
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them into great confusion. Wharton's Texas Rangers and Maney's and Donelson's Brigades followed up the advantage gained and the fight was won on that part of the field with comparatively light loss on the Confederate side. The Con- federates had 13,000 men engaged, all told, against a force of 55,000 on the Federal side, available if not engaged. Captain Carnes was famous from that das, and his reputation was earned by hard. skillful fighting. In this battle he received his first and only wound during the war, being shot in the foot. He remained with his command and rode in an ambu- lance the greater part of the time on the retreat. He had been sick most of the campaign, and reaching Knoxville was given sick leave of absence to go to Macon, Ga., where his sisters were at school. There he met the lady to whom he was married soon after the war, and the Captain says he has never had any spite against the Yankee rifleman who helped to send him there.
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