A Brief History of Clinch’s Regiment, 4^th Georgia Volunteer Cavalry
“The Wiregrass Fourth”

Provisional Army of the Confederate States

1860 - 1865

By

O.J Hickox, Jr.
(March 2011)

Notes:  This sketch and the associated work on Clinch’s Artillery Company are both largely excerpted or condensed from the compiler’s work in progress on the Civil War history of Southeastern Georgia:

“A Test of Character - The Life and Times of Clinch’s Regiment, 4^th Georgia Volunteer Cavalry (The “Wiregrass Fourth”), and Clinch’s Artillery Company, Provisional Army of the Confederate States, 1861 – 1865.” 

Copyright Information:

The illustration of Captain T.S. Hopkins is from a family website created by the descendants of his slaves, but its ultimate source has not been determined.  The illustration of Captain George Lang is from his descendant Earl Lang, via the Bryan-Lang Historical Library in Woodbine, Georgia.  The rendering of Captain John Readdick is likewise from the Bryan-Lang Historical Library.  The photograph of Captain T.S. Wylly is from his family and is used with the permission of his great grand-daughter, Mrs. Wendy Wylly Angel Leo.  Captain W.M. Hazzard’s photo is from the Georgetown SC Library and the likeness of Dr. R. B. Burroughs is from an old Confederate Veteran Magazine.  The photographs of the remaining 4^th Georgia Cavalry company commanders are all from either “History of Camden County Georgia” by James T. Vocelle or “History of Pierce County Georgia” by Dean Broome.  All other illustrations and graphics are from the sources cited thereupon.

Except as stated above, the information contained herein is copyrighted to the compiler and is made available to the public for educational purposes without restriction.  No other use is permitted without the written consent of the compiler:

O.J. Hickox, Jr.
POB 60
Kinsale, VA 22488

(804) 472-3252

 

~A Test of Character ~

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Confederate Cavalry at Olustee From the Booklet “The Battle of Olustee and the Olustee Battlefield Site-A Brief History”  Historical Research Committee  Olustee Battlefield Citizens Support Organization

Some Company Commanders of Clinch’s 4^th Georgia Cavalry
or its Predecessor Organizations

Captain George Lang 1st War-time Commander “Camden Chasseurs”	Captain John Readdick 2nd War-time Commander “Camden Chasseurs”	Captain Alexander Smith Atkinson1st Commander “Camden Mounted Rifles”
Captain Thomas Spalding Hopkins 1st Commander “Wayne Rangers”	Captain Alexander Lang 3rd Commander “Wayne Rangers”   Captain Edwin Pickford Crum 3rd Commander “Shiloh Troops”   Captain Nathan Atkinson Brown 2nd Commander “Camden Mounted Rifles”
Captain John Calhoun Nicholls Commander Company I	Captain Robert Newton King Commander Company E	Captain Enoch Daniel Hendry 1st Commander "Atlantic and Gulf Guards"
Captain Allen C. Strickland 2nd Commander “Atlantic and Gulf Guards”	Captain Thomas Spalding Wylly Commander Company H	“Once a Cavalryman, always a Cavalryman” William Miles Hazzard Captain Commander Company B “Glynn Guards” In the twilight of his life
Surgeon (Major) Richard Berrien Burroughs Senior Medical Officer Clinch’s Regiment 4th Georgia Volunteer Cavalry, PACS

            Colonel D.L. Clinch's regiment, 4^th Georgia Volunteer Cavalry, Provisional Army of the Confederate States, grew out of a need for a military force-in-being in the coastal region of southeastern Georgia during the Civil War.  This sparsely-populated, far-flung region, which contributed several regiments of infantry to the Confederate army, was virtually without defense by mid-1862, when Confederate authorities had abandoned the practically indefensible coastal area with its numerous rivers, bays, creeks, tidal estuaries, and off-shore islands, and much of its male white population had left to join the Confederate army.  Due to their exposed locations, the off-shore islands, plus Brunswick, Darien, and St. Marys, had all been abandoned and the residents had “refugeed” to safer locales in the uplands.  The only formal military forces remaining in the area were several independent companies of partisan rangers or cavalry mustered for state service and three excess mounted companies which had been spun off from the 26^th (formerly 13^th) Georgia Volunteer Infantry and were left behind when that regiment went north in the early summer of 1862 to join the Confederate forces being gathered in Northern Virginia to confront the growing Federal armies located around Washington DC.
            In early 1862, Confederate military authorities organized these various mounted companies into “The Cavalry Command South of the Altamaha River”, and put them under the command of Duncan L. Clinch, Jr., a local planter and an army veteran of the war with Mexico. He was the son and namesake of the late highly-regarded veteran of the War of 1812, Indian fighter, planter, and public servant - Brigadier General Duncan L. Clinch, Sr., of Camden County. The junior Clinch located his headquarters at Waynesville, which was growing significantly in regional importance with the war’s progression and deteriorating conditions on the coast. For a time, Clinch’s command shared the small village with several thousand coastal refugees, and soon saw it become the region’s de-facto capital.
            The initial organization of the “Cavalry Command South of the Altamaha River” was:

Commanding Officer -	Major Duncan Lamont Clinch, Jr.
Company Commanders -
“Wayne Rangers”	Captain Thomas Spalding Hopkins
“Camden Chasseurs”	Captain George Lang
“Camden Mounted Rifles”	Captain Alexander Smith Atkinson
“Glynn Guards”	Captain George Christopher Dent
“Atlantic and Gulf Guards”	Captain Enoch Daniel Hendry

            In the spring of 1862, the Confederate army was reorganized for the duration of the war, and most of the command’s company officers were replaced at elections attendant to the reorganization, including all the above company commanders.
            The new company commanders were:

“Wayne Rangers”	Captain Joseph Sinclair Wiggins
“Camden Chasseurs”	Captain John Readdick
“Camden Mounted Rifles”	Captain Nathan Atkinson Brown
“Glynn Guards”	Captain William Miles Hazzard
“Atlantic and Gulf Guards”	Captain Allen C. Strickland

            In June 1862, due to the abandonment of Brunswick and the urgent need for rails elsewhere in the Confederacy, as well as to prevent their use by the Federals, the rails on the Brunswick and Florida Railroad were removed from Brunswick to Waynesville by civilian laborers, probably slaves, working under the direction of Clinch and fed from funds reimbursed by the Confederate Army.
            In the same timeframe, Clinch was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and authorized an Executive/Operations Officer.  Additional companies were added to his command as the year progressed, and it was renamed the 3^rd Battalion, Georgia Volunteer Cavalry.  By late 1862, the organization of the 3^rd Battalion was:

Commanding Officer -	Lieutenant Colonel Duncan L. Clinch, Jr.
Executive & Operations Officer -	Major John L. Harris
Company Commanders -
A - “Atlantic and Gulf Guards”	Captain Allen C. Strickland
B - “Shiloh Troops”	Captain Jesse Campbell McDonald
C - “Wayne Rangers”	Captain Joseph Sinclair Wiggins
D - “Glynn Guards”	Captain W. Miles Hazzard
E -  “Camden Mounted Rifles”	Captain Nathan Atkinson Brown
F -  “Camden Chasseurs”	Captain John Readdick
G -  No name	Captain Robert Newton King
H - “Georgia Dragoons”	Captain James Peyton Turner
I   -  No name	Captain Thomas Spalding Wylly
K -  No name	Captain John Calhoun Nicholls

            In December 1862, Captain Strickland of Company A died from an internal infection or injury and was replaced by Alexander McMillan.

            The 3^rd Battalion, Georgia Volunteer Cavalry operated solely inside its nominal area of responsibility - the coastal region of southeastern Georgia between the Altamaha and St. Marys Rivers.  Its mission was to perform scouting, picketing, and courier service in the region and, most importantly, to offer some credible resistance to Federal attempts to disrupt its contribution to the Confederate war effort. This resulted in some skirmishing with blockading Federals, as well as a few disaffected slaves and non-compliant conscripts and Confederate army deserters.  Several men from the command were killed or wounded in these frays.
            In early 1863, the battalion, having recently been enlarged to ten companies, and numbering almost a thousand men, was re-designated the 4^th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Cavalry.  At that point, the companies were all re-lettered, D.L. Clinch was promoted to full colonel, John L. Harris to lieutenant colonel, and J.C. McDonald of the “Shiloh Troops” to major.  David Crum was promoted to McDonald’s vacancy at company command in the “Shiloh Troops”, and Clinch’s younger brother, Nicholas Bayard Clinch, was brought in as regimental adjutant at the rank of 1^st Lieutenant.
            The regimental organization at that time was:

Commanding Officer-	Colonel Duncan Lamont Clinch, Jr.
Executive Officer -	Lieutenant Colonel John L. Harris
Operations Officer -	Major Jesse Campbell McDonald
Adjutant-	1st Lieutenant Nicholas Bayard Clinch
Company Commanders:
A-  “Wayne Rangers”	Captain Joseph Sinclair Wiggins
B - “Glynn Guards”	Captain William Miles Hazzard
C - “Camden Mounted Rifles”	Captain Nathan Atkinson Brown
D - “Camden Chasseurs”	Captain John Readdick
E -    No name	Captain Robert Newton King
F - “Georgia Dragoons”	Captain James Peyton Turner
G - “Atlantic and Gulf Guards”	Captain Alexander McMillan
H -   No name	Captain Thomas Spalding Wylly
I   -   No name	Captain John Calhoun Nicholls
K - “Shiloh Troops”	Captain David Crum

            In March, the regiment was ordered to support other Confederate troops gathering near Jacksonville, Florida, to confront some recently-arrived water-borne Federals probing the St. Johns River for opportunities to disrupt the local economy and to perhaps establish a permanent foot-hold in the region.  Clinch took his third-in-command, Major J.C. McDonald, a battery of three pieces of artillery, and five companies, all told 277 men.  While the records are not definitive about it, the companies probably were:

A -	Captain J.S. Wiggins
C -	Captain N. A. Brown
D -	Captain John Readdick
E -	Captain R.N. King
H -	Captain T.S. Wylly

            1^st Lieutenant Charles F. Matthews of Company C and 2^nd Lieutenant John L. Morgan of Company G probably commanded the regiment’s battery of artillery on the expedition.  It appears that the regimental second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Harris, and the remainder of the command, stayed in Georgia and continued its mission of protecting the southeastern Georgia coast.  This brief deployment, in which Clinch served as the field commander of all the Confederate forces, involved some skirmishing and probes, but no serious fighting.  It was concluded with both sides throwing a few artillery rounds at each other, then retreating to their defenses to observe a stalemate.  With the arrival of other Florida forces, Clinch brought his men back home, arriving in Georgia on about 25 March.  The Federals soon abandoned the effort and passed on the opportunity to permanently occupy Jacksonville after robbing a few plantations and generally destroying anything of value they could find farther up the St. Johns River.
            For the remainder of 1863, Clinch’s 4^th Georgia Cavalry continued to operate exclusively in the southeastern region of Georgia, as previously described.  Increased activity by the ever-aggressive Federals in the region, operating primarily out of St. Simons Island and Fernandina, Florida, resulted in additional skirmishes, the most notable of which were two altercations, one in April and another in June.  In the first case, the commander of the “Glynn Guards”, Captain W.M. Hazzard returned to his home grounds on Saint Simons, along with a squad of his men, and conducted offensive operations against the Federal forces there, determined to do damage to their local base of operations.  While killing or wounding several Federals, he burned the wharf and the large storehouses at the southwestern end of the island, which were located around Gascoigne Bluff. During this operation, the Confederates destroyed a large quantity of coal, plus some quartermaster and commissary stores, which had been landed there by the enemy. The second incident involved a day-long skirmish on 8 June 1863 in which Hazzard and his “Glynn Guards” took on several boat-loads of Yankees attempting to destroy some salt-manufacturing apparatus in the Turtle River above Brunswick.  Several more Federals were killed or wounded in this fray.  Other such events involved various Federal excursions throughout the war on the Satilla, St. Marys, and Turtle Rivers to attack plantations, salt-works, sawmills, brickyards, shipyards, turpentine distilleries, potential blockade runners, and other economic enterprises. And, the regiment continued to occasionally encounter armed Confederate deserters, non-compliant conscripts, runaway slaves, and disaffected citizens. These encounters, of course, resulted in several woundings and deaths amongst the regiment’s personnel. To further burden its members, in 1863, the regiment suffered the ravages of a severe typhoid epidemic, having for several months as many as 110 men sick at a time and ultimately suffering about two dozen deaths to the disease.
            Up to that point, the regiment had based its headquarters at Waynesville, while keeping the individual companies at various camps located closer to, and maintaining many picket posts along, the coast.  In the fall of 1863, Clinch moved his headquarters to Camp Mercer, near Screven, probably due to the Confederate government’s decision to remove the rails from Waynesville to the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad near present-day Waycross, but his regiment’s mission remained the same, and he continued to keep most of his companies, or detachments from them, on or near the coast.  The summer and fall of 1863 also witnessed a considerable effort by the regiment to collect recalcitrant conscripts and deserters around South Georgia, involving about a dozen separate patrols and at least 85 men.  This activity occasionally resulted in some skirmishes and a few more casualties.
            In the same time-frame, about 100 men of the regiment whose horses had died, or become sick or lame, were transferred to a new unit formed under Colonel Clinch's younger brother and former Adjutant, newly-elected Captain N. Bayard Clinch.  This command, “Clinch’s Artillery Company”, or “Clinch’s Light Battery”, would move to the vicinity of Savannah in June of 1864, from which time its mission and locations would be separate from those of the 4^th Georgia Cavalry.  In December 1863, Captain J.S. Wiggins of Company A was elected to the state House of Representatives and resigned.  His place as commander of the “Wayne Rangers” was filled by Alexander Lang.
            The mission of the 4^th Georgia was enlarged in early 1864 when Colonel Clinch was called upon to contribute again to the meager Confederate forces in northeastern Florida opposing those of a sizable new group of invading Federals that resulted in the battle of Olustee, some 50 or so miles west of Jacksonville.  Clinch's command contributed 250 of its nominal strength of over 900 men, which included detachments from, or all of, the following companies:

B -	Captain W. Miles Hazzard
C -	Captain Nathan A. Brown
D -	Captain John Readdick
F -	Captain James P. Turner
G -	Captain Alexander McMillan
I  -	Captain John C. Nicholls
K -	Captain David Crum

            The remainder of the regiment again stayed in Georgia under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Harris and Major McDonald to continue to perform its mission there.  This division of responsibilities was dictated by the continuing campaign of attack against the economy of southeastern Georgia by the Federals.  In fact, Major McDonald was in command of a large detachment operating around the St. Marys River contesting a significant Federal force operating on the river while his colonel was leading others from the regiment to Florida.  Clinch, and the portion of the regiment going with him, left on horse-back on 13 February from Screven or, within a day later, from the other camps from which some of the companies were operating.  Apparently, the regiment was consolidated around King’s Ferry on the St. Marys River and moved on to Olustee together from there.  Clinch sent his heavy equipage on its way to Florida by the rails to Valdosta, from which it was shipped via wagon to the railroad at Madison, Florida, and eventually met them somewhere around Olustee.  Clinch and his troopers arrived in Olustee on 17 February, and were involved in the initial fighting early on the morning of the twentieth.
            Clinch and Colonel Carraway Smith of the 2^nd Florida Cavalry were sent out with their cavalry by General Finegan to locate the approaching enemy and then draw them back toward the well-entrenched Confederate infantry near Olustee.  As the main battle developed, the regiment was moved to the left flank of the Confederate lines to prevent any attempt by the Federals to outflank the Southern infantry on that side.  In the process of taking station, many of the regiment’s horses bogged down in a swampy area and some were lost.  This unfortunate event, plus a severe leg wound suffered early in the action that caused Colonel Clinch to retire from the field, effectively took the regiment out of the remaining day’s fight.  Captain N.A. Brown of Company C assumed command when Clinch left the field, but the regiment was not involved in any further substantive action on that day.  A clairvoyant, Mrs. D.L. Clinch, who had foreseen her husband’s condition in a dream, soon arrived on the battlefield and took him back to their recently-purchased Brooks County plantation to recover.
            The battle, a resounding Confederate victory, caused the Federals to retreat to the safety of Jacksonville and the protection of the heavily-armed army transports and navy gunboats there.

            The regiment remained in Florida after the battle, serving under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John L. Harris and Major J.C. McDonald, who came to Florida after Clinch's wounding and brought reinforcements of about another 100 men from those who had remained initially in Georgia.  The command stayed in the region until late April, operating around Waldo, Starke, and Palatka against the ever-aggressive Federals committing depredations along the St. Johns River and in the up-river lakes while enjoying the protection of their armed army transports and a few powerful navy gunboats.
            These operations were demanding and dangerous, and the regiment lost a number of men wounded or captured during the time.  Many of its horses were also worn down and debilitated by their exertions of the recent weeks.  The campaign having finally wound down after several weeks, the regiment was ordered back to Georgia, departing on 23 April and arriving in Screven, or at its respective other company camps, on the 28^th  and 29^th .  Its time there was going to be brief, as major operations loomed in the offing.
            At the end of June 1864, on the eve of these most challenging and important operations, the organization of the regiment was:

Command:
Commanding Officer -	Colonel Duncan L. Clinch, Jr.
	(Wounded and on convalescent leave)
Executive Officer -	Lieutenant Colonel John L. Harris
	(Acting Commanding Officer)
Operations Officer -	Major Jesse C. McDonald

Staff:

Assistant Commissary of Subsistence,
Assistant Quartermaster, & Paymaster -	Captain Henry R. Fort
Surgeon -	Major  Richard Berrien Burroughs
	(at Camp Mercer)
Assistant Surgeons -	Captain John W. Bowdoin
	(at Camp Mercer)
	Captain W. T. Grant
	(at Waynesville)
Hospital Matron-	Mrs. Mary  L. Spears
	(at Waynesville)
Drillmaster -	Vacant, but possibly
	2nd Lieutenant Wilson Campbell,
	who may have continued in the
	position while also assigned as
	Acting Assistant Quartermaster.
Chaplain -	Vacant
Adjutant -	1st Lieutenant John Screven Bryan

Regimental Sergeant-Major -	Sergeant-Major S.W. Cary
Color Sergeant-	2nd Sergeant Henry R. DuBignon
Ordnance Sergeants-	Ordnance Sergeant Garie Lang
	Ordnance Sergeant A. Atkinson
Quartermaster Sergeant-	Quartermaster Sergeant Elias C. Fort
- Assistant	Private Glover G. Foremen
Commissary Sergeants -	Commissary Sergeant William Pendarvis
	Acting Commissary Sgt Timmons Myers
Wagon-Master -	2nd Sergeant J. Downie
Chief Farrier -	Private John F. Evans
Colonel’s Orderly -	Private Elias Pitman, Co. G
Hospital Orderly -	Private Horace Dart, Invalid Corps
	(at Waynesville & Screven)
Hospital Steward -	Private Alexander C. Scott,
	Medical Department
	(at Waynesville)

Companies:

A -	“Wayne Rangers”	F -	“Georgia Dragoons”
	Captain Alexander Lang  1st Lieutenant Wilson Sarvis  2nd Lieutenant R.B. Hopps  2nd Lieutenant W.T.E. Butler		Captain James P. Turner 1st Lieutenant J. N. Barrow 2nd Lieutenant W.J. Dopson   2nd Lieutenant I. Alderman
B -	“Glynn Guards”	G -	“Atlantic and Gulf Guards”
	Captain W. Miles Hazzard  1st Lieutenant J. P. Scarlett  2nd Lieutenant R. S. Pyles  2nd Lieutenant H.F. Grant		Captain Alexander McMillan 1st Lieutenant H. Jordan 2nd Lieutenant J. L. Morgan 2nd Lieutenant W. H. McMillan
C -	“Camden Mounted Rifles”	HH -	No Nickname
	Captain Nathan A. Brown 1st Lieutenant C. F. Matthews 2nd Lieutenant H. J. Nicholes 2nd Lieutenant B. J. Gowen		Captain Thomas S. Wylly  1st Lieutenant J. H. Carroll  2nd Lieutenant J. A. Dasher  2nd Lieutenant  J.O.A. Howell
D -	“Camden Chasseurs”	I -	No Nickname
	Captain John Readdick  1st Lieutenant A. J. Dunham  2nd Lieutenant J. J. Rudolph  2nd Lieutenant F. Lang		Captain John C. Nicholls 1st Lieutenant A. S. Leighton 2nd Lieutenant G. M.T. Ware 2nd Lieutenant (Vacant)
E -	No Nickname	K -	“Shiloh Troops”
	Captain Robert N. King 1st Lieutenant J. S. Cavedo 2nd Lieutenant J. S. Collier 2nd Lieutenant J.W. Herndon		Captain David Crum  1st Lieutenant M. Graham  2nd Lieutenant R.T. Williams  2nd Lieutenant J. G. Ritch

            As Confederate prospects around Atlanta and Charleston began to deteriorate in mid-1864, the regiment was re-positioned to extend its support for the first time to the area above the Altamaha River, which had been recently vacated by the reassignment of the 5^th Georgia Cavalry to duties near Atlanta.  So, it began to move some companies across the river.  In May, Company E (King) went to Dorchester in Liberty County and Company H (Wylly) moved to South Newport in McIntosh County.  In June, Company F (Turner) moved to “Camp Rogers” in Bryan County.
            These relatively minor movements presaged significant changes, because major movements were soon ordered.  On 5 July, Clinch had returned to active service, but with his Olustee wound still unhealed.  Nonetheless, he carried out urgent orders to take the regiment to Savannah, and then split his command into two detachments.  He was ordered to take the first detachment, comprised of one-third of his companies, to Atlanta with all the regiment's horses, and send the other group to Charleston without horses.  He quickly gathered his far-flung command and sent it on the rails to Savannah, where it would split up as ordered.
            The dismounted detachment, about 300 men under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Harris, was ordered to the vicinity of Charleston and, upon arrival there, participated as infantry in some of the fighting at Burden’s Causeway on Johns Island on 8 and 9 July, during yet another attempt by the determined Federals to capture the city which, in their view, had fomented the “Rebellion” and initiated hostilities.  While the fighting on the 9^th was vicious, with the Confederate attacking entrenched Federal forces, the regiment served mostly in a reserve capacity and was not involved in the initial attack.  But, it participated in a charge towards the end of the fighting and had two men wounded, one of whom later died.  The Yankees retreated to the safety of their gunboats after nightfall on the 9^th, and abandoned yet another effort to break through the formidable Confederate defenses around Charleston.

Charleston, SC and Vicinity, 1864

            With the successful thwarting of that latest threat to the security of the “Cradle of Secession”, on the 13^th of July Lieutenant Colonel Harris and his detachment were ordered to re-join the remainder of the regiment near Atlanta, probably traveling by rail and arriving by the end of the month.

Major Confederate and Federal Army Maneuvers Around Atlanta

July - September 1864

from

“Civil War Battle Atlas”

By
Time Life Books

            Those men who had gone directly to Atlanta traveled via the rails to Macon, where they disembarked and were immediately diverted to Columbus on their horses.  This detour was in response to a potential threat against the huge Confederate industrial complex there from Federal Major General Rousseau’s raid into the region coming out of northeastern Alabama.  When that threat dissipated, they rode their horses back to Fort Valley near Macon, then on to Atlanta where they joined the Confederate Army of Tennessee and prepared to participate in the desperate Confederate defensive effort there.  Upon arrival, the reunited regiment reported to Major General “Fighting Joe” Wheeler’s Cavalry Corps in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.  For a period of time, it was stationed on the eastern side of Atlanta around Stone Mountain, where it was involved in a series of skirmishes with Federal cavalry.  Then, in late August it was moved to the southwestern side of Atlanta, where it was dismounted and placed in trenches previously constructed by other Confederate troops at Mount Gilead Church, located about five miles west of East Point.
            On 31 August, Sherman sent his 100,000 man army to the west of the city swinging counter-clockwise like a hinged gate to cut its remaining rail connections to the south and west, and in the process forcing the 4^th Georgia Cavalry from its breastworks at Mount Gilead Church and driving it back to the vicinity of Rough and Ready.  Several of the regiment’s members were reported to have been killed or wounded in this fighting and the battle of Jonesboro the following day.
            Among the regiment’s casualties was Captain T.S. Wylly, who was so badly wounded in the neck and shoulder that he was left on the battlefield at Jonesboro when the regiment retreated from Sherman’s overwhelming forces.  Surgeon Richard B. Burroughs went back to the battlefield and rescued Wylly, hauling him to safety on his own horse.  As Atlanta was falling to the Federal forces shortly thereafter, the regiment was remounted and assigned, along with other cavalry units, to serve as the rear guard while Confederate forces evacuated the city.  Soon, they were involved in additional skirmishing with Federal cavalry, as the Confederate army relocated south of Atlanta.  Several more men were wounded or captured during these operations.
            For a time thereafter, the regiment accompanied General John B. Hood in his brief campaign to lure Sherman into the mountains northwest of Atlanta, and operated as far as northeastern Alabama and possibly southeastern Tennessee, skirmishing and scouting on a regular basis.  Hood’s attempt was for little avail since Sherman would not take the bait, remaining with the majority of his army near Atlanta while his cavalry harassed and chased Hood’s infantry, and the several strong Federal outposts along the railroads north of Atlanta kept Hood’s attention focused on small gains with little strategic value.
            The recent operations had been difficult and demanding and, after three months of arduous combat service, many of the men in the regiment and their horses were worn down to a state of ineffectiveness.  Further sickness and wounds, both new and unhealed old ones, were beginning to diminish the numbers of active men in the regiment, as well as its leadership.  Approximately 80 members of the command, out of about 450 who had deployed to Atlanta, were hospitalized in the summer and fall of 1864.  Captain N.A. Brown of Company C was admitted to the Macon Blind School Hospital with “Bilious Fever” on about 23 September, where he remained until late December.  At the same time, Colonel D.L. Clinch again relinquished command to seek medical care.  On 26 September, he was reported to have been hospitalized in Macon with a broken leg and a “supporating (sic) wound”, which no doubt was his unhealed Olustee wound.  Further, on 28 September 1864, Captain David Crum died in camp somewhere around Atlanta, possibly as the result of a mortal wound suffered in mid-August during some fighting at the main ford on the Connesauga River near Dalton, Georgia, and was replaced as commander of the “Shiloh Troops” by his brother, former Company 1^st Sergeant E.P. (Pickford) Crum.
            These conditions were recognized by Confederate authorities and, during a brief respite in the campaign in late October, about 100 men and some of the regiment's horses were sent to Ladiga, in eastern Alabama, where they rested and recuperated under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Harris after the vigorous campaigning of the previous months.  Not shown on modern maps, Ladiga was just across the state line from present-day Cedartown, Georgia.  After some ten days there, in early November they were ordered to join the remainder of the regiment, presumably operating under the command of Major McDonald.  They deployed near Atlanta for the next two weeks, scouting and harassing Federal troops.

 

Sherman’s March to the Sea
November - December 1864

from

“ The Confederacy ”

MacMillan Reference USA

            In mid-November, Sherman destroyed much of what was left in Atlanta, and embarked with 60,000 picked men on his infamous “March to the Sea”, exploiting the hollow shell that the Confederate military had become, destroying and pillaging everything that he could lay his hands upon between Atlanta and Savannah that had potential use to the Southern economy and the Confederate military forces.  From then to the end of December, the regiment was involved in a largely ineffective Confederate opposition to Sherman's aggressive predators, skirmishing almost constantly for six weeks, losing men to various causes along the way, and possibly also losing its battle-flag in a skirmish with Federal cavalry near Waynesboro in Burke County on 28 November.¹
            On 4 December in a pitched cavalry battle with Kilpatrick’s command at Waynesboro, the regiment suffered badly.  Major Jesse C. McDonald was captured, and several other men were captured, killed, or wounded.  Captains E.P. Crum and J.P. Turner were among the latter.  Surgeon Richard B. Burroughs, assisted by an enlisted doctor, Sergeant George Lang, and probably other personnel, performed several intricate operations, including amputations of severely-damaged limbs, amongst the wounded men of the regiment, doing so in the field without the usual facilities and medical supplies and under sanitary conditions that were marginal at best.  That they all survived is a testimony to his exceptional medical skills.
            In mid-December, Sherman arrived at the coast, where, in a brief and hotly-contested fight on 13 December, he captured Fort McAllister, which was located near the mouth of the Ogeechee River and guarded the southern water-borne approaches to Savannah.  Captain N.B. Clinch's Artillery Company, comprised largely of former 4^th Georgia Cavalry-men, were all captured or killed there, and Captain Clinch was severely wounded, along with a goodly portion of his men.  The loss of Fort McAllister sealed Savannah’s fate, because Sherman had thereby gained access to the huge source of refit and supply lurking offshore in the Federal fleet awaiting his arrival on the coast.  Savannah fell to the Federals on 21 December when Camden County native, Lieutenant General W.J. Hardee, escaping Sherman’s reaching grasp in the still of the night, took his 10,000 man force across the Savannah River into South Carolina.
            This effectively ended major military operations in Georgia.  Sherman occupied Savannah to rest and refit his army over the Christmas holidays.  Then, in early 1865, leaving behind sufficient forces to hold the city and to keep the few remaining regional Confederate military forces at bay, he moved his massive force into the Carolinas, where it encountered a gallant, but feeble and ultimately futile, resistance.
            The whereabouts of Clinch’s 4th Georgia Cavalry during the remainder of the war is subject to several differences of opinion.  Some references have them accompanying Wheeler into the Carolinas, surrendering with Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston's army in North Carolina.  Others have them remaining in Georgia, operating for a while to the west and south of Savannah under Brigadier General Alfred Iverson, then resuming their previous mission of picketing and courier service along the southeastern coast.  It is the compiler’s definitive conclusion that the regiment remained in Georgia, for the following reasons.
            It would appear that the Confederate forces operating in Georgia and Florida came under the terms of the surrender negotiated by Johnston and Sherman in North Carolina during late April.  This possibly has led some historians to the erroneous conclusion that the 4^th Georgia was actually in North Carolina with Johnston’s army at the time.  The evidence, including a number of official reports to, from, or concerning the regiment during the time, as well as numerous post-war applications for Confederate pensions by former members of the command, overwhelmingly proves that it remained in Georgia, initially operating below Savannah, but eventually returning to Camp Mercer, near Screven in Wayne County, Georgia, and resuming its earlier mission to protect the coastal region between the Altamaha and the St. Marys Rivers.  Further, the record is clear that Colonel Clinch returned from his hospitalization in March 1865 and reassumed command at Camp Mercer, dissolving the regiment there shortly after Johnston’s surrender.  He held a ceremony, probably in the first week of May, at which all the men still present for duty in the regiment (likely no more than about 200 of all ranks) were formed up into companies.  Clinch made a brief speech, which was seconded by Captain Nicholls and other officers, and admonished his men to “return home and go to work”.  Lieutenant Colonel Harris, who apparently was never captured during the war, was paroled at Augusta after the cessation of hostilities, and the majority of the regiment’s members were paroled in Thomasville, Georgia, during the month of May.

¹ Brigadier General H. Judson Kilpatrick, Sherman’s Chief of Cavalry, reported capturing the flag of a 4^th Georgia Cavalry there on that date but did not specify which of the two regiments it was.

            The records of Clinch’s 4^th Georgia Cavalry for the time after June 1864 are woefully sparse, probably due primarily to the destruction of the records of the Confederate Army of Tennessee at the chaotic evacuation of Atlanta in September 1864, and obviously do not fully reflect the experiences of the regiment’s personnel during that dangerous and debilitating time.  But, those which have survived show that, of the somewhat over 2300 men who served in the regiment during the conflict, at least 68 men died while serving in the command, nine of them were killed in action or died of wounds suffered in combat with the enemy, and 45 were captured. Six of the latter died while being held in Northern prison camps and are included in the 68 dead.
            As was the case in most other commands of the Confederate Army, by the end of hostilities, the merciless demands of war had ground down the active personnel of the 4^th Georgia Cavalry to a mere token of their former numbers.  One source estimated that Clinch’s regiment comprised only about 200 officers and men in May 1865 when it concluded operations.  This represents over a 90 % depletion rate, and is only one of the many measures of the awful cost of the tragic sectional war between Americans in the 1860s.  In fact, out of the much-reduced numbers that deployed to Atlanta in the summer of 1864 (about 450 men), at least 78 had been hospitalized for various reasons during the Atlanta campaign and the “March to the Sea”, which represents about 20 % of those that were still active in the regiment at the time of their departure for that seat of war.  The estimated numbers of men remaining in active service at the conclusion of hostilities would indicate that more than half of the approximately 425 men of the regiment that were paroled at the end of the war were no longer actively serving with the regiment.

            While few of these losses were due to death, it is indicative of the degree to which the cruel processes of war can gleefully consume the human resources of any society.  Further, while these figures do not replicate the degree of decimation seen in the many Southern units which performed front-line duties far longer than did Colonel Duncan L. Clinch’s “Wiregrass Fourth” Georgia Cavalry, they still represent much valiant service and personal sacrifice, as well as unfathomable tragedy on the part of the families whose men lost their lives while serving their society.
            Yes, “War is Hell” indeed!

-  O.J. Hickox, Jr.

 

“Furling the Flag”

 by

Richard Norris Brooks
(1872)

from

“THE G. I. SERIES

Johnny Reb
The Uniform of the Confederate Army
1861-1865 ”

Stackpole Books

Appendix A

Company Designation Summary

Due to the evolving nature of Clinch’s 4^th GA Volunteer Cavalry and its prior organizations, the letter designations assigned to the various companies were changed numerous times.  Likewise, in many cases, their commanders changed several times as military re-election and the rigors of active campaigning, sickness, wounding, death, promotion, political elections, and war-weariness, caused realignments in the command structures of the companies and of the regiment.  To ease the burden of following these changes, the compiler has prepared the following matrix which summarizes this evolving situation:

			Letter Designation
Co. Nom de Guerre	Commander(s)	13th Inf	26th Inf	3rd Batt	4th Cav
Wayne Rangers	Hopkins, Wiggins, Alex. Lang	-	-	C	A
Glynn Guards	Dent, Hazzard	A	A	D	B
Camden Mounted    Rifles	Atkinson, Brown	D	B	E	C
Camden Chasseurs	Geo. Lang, Readdick	-	-	F	D
None	King	-	-	G	E
Georgia Dragoons	Turner	-	-	H	F
Atlantic and Gulf    Guards	Hendry, Strickland, McMillan	N	N	A	G
None	Wylly	-	-	I	H
None	Nicholls	-	-	K	I
Shiloh Troops	McDonald, D. Crum, P. Crum	-	-	B	K

Appendix B

Men who are reported to have died while serving in
Clinch’s Cavalry or its predecessor organizations

Note: Most of those who died in 1863, and for which no cause is given, may safely be presumed to have suffered the effects of the typhoid fever that ran rampant through southeastern Georgia, and the regiment, in that year.

Appendix C

Men are reported to have been captured while serving
in Clinch’s Cavalry or its prior organizations

	Name	Rank	Co.	Location	Date	Disposition
1.	Aspinwall(s), Andrew J. (Jackson)	PVT	I	See Note # 1 below	-	-
2.	Berrie, William A. (or H.)	PVT	B	Fort Gates FL.	1 Apr 1864	Released 16 Jun 1865 at Fort Delaware DE
3.	Birch (Burch), B. (or A.L.B. or A.S.B.)	PVT	F	In Florida	13 Apr 1864	Released 16 Jun 1865 at Fort Delaware DE
4.	Brantley, Nathaniel  (G., Green)	PVT	G	“Fairburg” (Fairburn) GA	2 Sep 1864	Died 14 Feb 1865 at Camp Douglas IL
5.	Burt, Alfred G. (L, P, or A.L.P.)	PVT	F	Fort Gates FL	7 Apr 1864	Transferred to Fort Delaware DE 14 Mar 1865. Nothing further.
6.	Cadwell (Caldwell), A. (Andy)	PVT	K	Olustee FL	20 Feb 1864	Escaped and returned to duty.
7.	Carroll, Jeremiah/Timothy	PVT	F	“Ladaggar” (Ladiga) Alabama	27 Oct 1864	Discharged 17 Jun 1865 at Camp Douglas IL
8.	Carter, George L. W.	PVT	F	Near Jonesborough GA	2 Sep 1864	Exchanged 19 or 22 Sep 1864 at Rough and Ready
9.	Carter, G.W. (#2)	PVT	K	In North GA/Northwest South Carolina	In 1865	Captured and paroled as PVT, Co. C, 4th GA Cav’y.
10.	Childs (Chiles), Joseph Wiggins	PVT	F	Fort Gates, FL	1 or 7 Apr 1864	Released 16 Jun 1865 at Fort Delaware DE
11.	Clark, John P.	1st CORP	C	Cabbage Bluff GA	1 Feb 1864	Exchanged 7 Mar 1865 at Richmond VA.
12.	Clark, William T. (F., P.)  (S.)	PVT	C	Cabbage Bluff GA	1 Feb 1864	Exchanged 12 Mar 1865 at Richmond VA
13.	Collins, J.S. (or Collier, John (S.))	2nd  LT	E	Surrendered & paroled ? at Athens GA as PVT	8 May 1865	Not stated
14.	Copeland, E.	PVT	F	Fort Gates FL	7 Apr 1864	Received 14 Mar 1864 at Fort Delaware DE. Nothing further.
15.	Copeland, Stephen W. (Wright)	PVT	C	Fort Gates FL	1 Apr 1864	Released 7 Jun 1865 at Fort Delaware DE.
16.	Crawford, E. (Ezekiel) M.	PVT	D	Fort Gates FL	7 Apr 1864	Released 16 Jun 1865 at Fort Delaware DE
17.	Dixon, Griffin	PVT	C	Cabbage Bluff GA	1 Feb 1864	Exchanged 7 Mar 1865 at Richmond VA.
18.	Dreggars, J.J.	PVT	F	Waynesboro GA	4 Dec 1864	Sent to Provost Marshall Savannah GA. Nothing further.
19.	Dryden, Benjamin	PVT	I	See Note # 2 below	-	-
20.	Finley, A.N. (M.)	PVT	I	Cabbage Bluff, GA	15 Feb 1864	Died of Smallpox 20 Apr 1864 at Fort Delaware DE
21.	Grant, James C.	PVT	E	Near Savannah.	9 or 10 Dec 1864	Died 31 May 1865 at Point Lookout  MD
22.	Griffis (Griffith), William	2nd CORP	I	Fort Gates FL	1 or 17 Apr 1864	Released 15 Jun 1865 at Fort Delaware DE
23.	Head, John (W.)	PVT	C	White Oak River GA, (probably Cabbage Bluff)	1, 15, or 20 Feb 1864.	Exchanged 18 Sep 1864 at Richmond VA
24.	Higginbotham, (Hickerbotham,  Higgerbotham), Hamilton	PVT	C	Cabbage Bluff GA	1 Feb 1864	Exchanged 7 Mar 1865 at  Richmond VA
25.	Hodge(s), W.L.	PVT	D	Hospital in Savannah GA	24 Dec 1864	Released 7 Jun 1865 at Fort Delaware DE
26.	Holmes, J. (James) Scott	PVT	C	Cabbage Bluff GA	1 Feb 1864	Exchanged 18 Sep 1864  at Richmond VA
27	Howard, Edmund	PVT	A	Walnut Creek GA	19 Nov 1864	Unk
28.	Jones, John D.	PVT	D	Fort Gates FL	1 Apr 1864	Released 7 Jun 1865 at Fort Delaware DE
29.	Kemp (Kempt), Francis (S.) E.	PVT	B	Savannah GA	21 Dec 1864	Released 7 Jun 1865  at Fort Delaware DE
30.	Lightsey, George W.	PVT	H	Near Atlanta GA	15 Aug 1864	Died 8 Oct 1864 at Camp Chase OH
31.	Lightsey, Samuel  (H.)	PVT	H	Near Atlanta, GA	15 Aug 1864	Released 11 Jun 1865 at Camp Chase OH
32.	McDonald, Jesse Campbell	Major	F&S	Waynesboro GA	4 Dec 1864	Released 24 Jul 1865 at Fort Delaware DE
33.	McShain, Neill	PVT	C	Cabbage Bluff, GA	1 Feb 1864	Exchanged 30 Sep 1864  at Richmond VA
34.	Memson, J. D.	PVT	F	Fort Gates FL	7 Apr 1864	Sent to Hilton Head. Nothing further.
35.	Milton (Melton), Elias	PVT	E	Waynesboro GA	4 Dec 1864	Released 29 Jun 1865 at Point Lookout MD
36.	Morrison, J. D.	PVT	D	Fort Gates FL	1 or 17 Feb 1864	Released 10 Jun 1865 at Fort Delaware DE
37.	Nobles, W.S.	PVT	A	Walnut Creek GA	19 Nov 64	Paroled home.
38.	Poncill (Ponsell,Pencil), Mike (Michael) R. (Robert)	PVT	B	Hopeton GA	3 or 4 Dec 1864	Released 7  Jun 1865 at Fort Delaware DE
39.	Raulerson (Rantison, Rawlerson, Roberson, Rolerson, Rolison), J. (Jasper) N.  (M., N. J.)	PVT	K	See note # 3 below	-	-
40.	Register, John W.	PVT	C	Cabbage Bluff GA	1 Feb 1864	Died 6 Nov 1864 at Fort Delaware DE
41.	Richardson, James W.	PVT	K	Barnwell County SC	7 Feb 1865	Released 17 Jun 1865  at Point Lookout MD
42.	Robuck, P.C.	PVT	K	Waynesboro GA	4 Dec 1864	Died 26 Feb 1865 at Point Lookout MD
43.	Thomas, James Madison	PVT	D	Near Camp Readdick, Camden County GA	13 Sep 1862	Exchanged by the end of Dec 1862
44.	Turner, Benjamin F. (Franklin)	2nd SGT	F	Fort Gates FL	1 Apr 1864	Released 16 Jun 1865 at Fort Delaware DE
45.	Youmans (Yeaman), William R. (Robert)	PVT	C	Van Wert GA	10 Oct 1864	Discharged 13 Jun 1865 at Camp Douglas IL

Notes:

            1. Huxford and Broome state that Aspinwall was captured, but that time and place are not known.
            2. Huxford places Dryden in Company G of the 50^th GA Volunteers on 4 March 1862, going AWOL in March 1863 and enlisting in Co. I, 4^th GA Cavalry, then transferring to Clinch’s Artillery Company 1 December 1863, being captured at Fort McAllister 13 December 1864, held at Elmira, NY until the end of the war, and being paroled at Thomasville 19 May 1865.  The matter of his capture is not corroborated by the records of either the cavalry regiment or the artillery company, and is not consistent with a parole at Thomasville in 1865.=
            3. Raulerson had been transferred to the 22^nd Battalion Georgia Acting Heavy Artillery.  Family lore states that he was captured while in a Confederate hospital in Savannah 21 December 1864, was transferred to a Federal hospital from which he escaped 21 January 1865, then reported to LCOL John L. Harris commanding the 4^th GA Cavalry at Southwell’s Bridge on the Ohoopee River.  He was sent home to recover his health, from which he returned to the 4^th GA after a week, remaining with that command until the end of hostilities.

Appendix D

Selected Biographical Sketches

COL Duncan L. Clinch, Jr., PACS (19 November 1826 – October 1890)

Born 19 November 1826 at Cantonment, Clinch, near Pensacola, Florida to COL (later brevet BGEN) Duncan L. Clinch, Sr., USA, and Eliza Bayard McIntosh of Camden County, Georgia.

Educated at Franklin College (now University of Georgia) and University of North Carolina - A.B. 1847.

Served as a volunteer in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War, 1847 - 1848.  1^st LT, 13^th US Infantry 9 April 1847, CAPT 30 July 1847.  The command, one of several new regiments in the regular army authorized by Congress, was nonetheless staffed largely by volunteers.  Falling under the nominal command of General Zachary Taylor, who was operating in northern Mexico at the time, it was organized somewhere on the Gulf Coast, possibly near New Orleans, and took several months to recruit and train before deploying to the Mexican theater.  It arrived in Mexico during September 1847 and was stationed in the highlands above Vera Cruz until May or June 1848.  Clinch, assigned to recruiting duty for his first several months, arrived after the regiment, and brought with him about six dozen new recruits from Georgia and Alabama.  Since General Winfield Scott’s campaign to conquer middle Mexico had just concluded by the time of the regiment’s arrival, it is unlikely that Clinch saw any substantive combat.  Although there were likely some skirmishes with the many guerrilla groups that harassed the Americans after major combat had ceased, his regiment seems to have been involved primarily in the various and sundry duties of an army of occupation while in Mexico.  It served in garrison, escort, and guard duties, and many of its officers were detached for such temporary assignments.  His experience was typical in that, while he commanded Company D during most of his service, he was also on detached duty as a quartermaster for a good part of that time.  His Mexican War service was rounded out by a three-month sick leave from April to June 1848.  Upon the regiment’s return to the U.S. in mid-1848, it was disbanded, and Clinch was discharged, at Mobile, Alabama, on 15 July 1848.  He later stated that, at the close of war, he was serving on the staff of General Scott, but no documentation has been found to support that statement.  Possibly it was during some of his detached duty.  He drew a Federal pension of $8 per month for this service, commencing in November 1888.

Married 15 November 1855 to Susan Ann Hopkins, born 27 December 1835, only child of William Timothy and Elizabeth H. Hopkins of Camden County.  Duncan and Susan Clinch lost a child, Henry McIntosh Clinch, age 11 months, to disease in 1859 and another, F.C., “Frank”, age 3 or 4, during their stay at Waynesville during the Civil War, probably in 1862 or ‘63.  Another son was born during the war and at least three more were born immediately afterwards.  She died 15 May 1879 at Waynesville at the age of 43.  Buried initially in Waynesville, her remains were later moved to the Oak Grove Cemetery in Brunswick.

CAPT -  MAJ - LCOL - COL, PACS:
Volunteer Aide-de-Camp to BGEN A.R. Lawson at Savannah, then successively Commander: Cavalry Command South of the Altamaha, 3^rd Battalion, then 4^th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Cavalry, “The Wiregrass Fourth”.

Physical attributes: 5’ 10” tall, dark hair, black eyes, fair complexion.

Planter, operator of “Cedar Hill” Plantation, a gift from his father-in-law, prior to the war, and also a resident of, or near, “Incachee” after the war, both in Camden County, Georgia.  The information on “Incachee” is interesting, in that it was the name of the plantation of CAPT Alexander Smith Atkinson, first commander of the “Camden Mounted Rifles”, later a company of the 4^th GA Cavalry, who owned and lived on the place before and after the war, and died there in 1894.  Clinch applied for his Mexican War pension from that address.  He was active in local politics from 1885 to the late 1880s.

Died in October 1890, buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, Brunswick, with his wife.

 

LCOL John Lewis Harris, PACS  (27 May 1821(3) - 5 May 1879)

Born in Richmond County, Georgia, at the family plantation, “Woodhill” to Benjamin F. Harris and Anna Mariah Milton.

Married: (1) Caroline Augusta McDaniel (died in 1851) on 19 December 1850 in DeKalb County, Georgia.
              (2) Celestia Beal (23 February 1834 - 15 December 1918) on 4 December 1853 in Richmond County, Georgia.

Pre-war:  Educated at various schools in GA, SC, & NC, taught school in SC, then studied law and was admitted to the Bar in Augusta where he practiced for some time.  Removed to Atlanta in 1848, where he served as City Attorney, was elected to the state legislature from Fulton County 1855, then removed to Brunswick in 1857 and joined his brother Benjamin F. Harris in the practice of law.  Elected to the state legislature again in 1858 from Glynn County, was present at the Secession Convention, voting for Secession.  He held three slaves in 1860.
          His first wife died shortly after their married sometime in late 1851; John was granted administrative letters in January 1852 on her estate.  This union did not produce any children as far as is known.

4^th CORP - 1^st LT - MAJ - LCOL, PACS:
Enlisted as a 4^th Corporal in the “Brunswick Rifles” (or “Riflemen”), a 60-day unattached company mustered into service 29 May 1861 commanded by his brother, CAPT Benjamin F. Harris, later became Executive Officer of “Shiloh Troops”, Executive Officer of 3^rd Battalion and then of Clinch’s 4^th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Cavalry.

Commanded the regiment for about two months in the Florida campaign after Colonel Clinch’s wounding at the Battle of Olustee 20 February 1864, as well a major detachment of the regiment in the Battle of Burden’s Causeway on John’s Island near Charleston, South Carolina in July 1864, then the entire regiment again after Clinch’s unhealed Olustee wound caused the regimental commander a lengthy hospitalization commencing in September 1864.  Harris remained in command of the regiment during the fighting around Atlanta and the Confederate opposition to Sherman’s “March to the Sea”.  He retained command during the regiment’s operations in southeastern Georgia from December 1864 to March 1865, when Clinch returned to duty and command of the regiment, at Camp Mercer, Screven Georgia.

Post-war:  Farmed briefly in Richmond County at the family homestead, in the fall of 1865 he moved to a farm in Ware County and practiced law.  In 1870 moved to a farm in Glynn County, continued to practice law, then took residence in Brunswick during the fall of 1871, where he practiced law until 1873 when he was appointed Judge of the Superior Court, Brunswick Circuit, which included the surrounding counties.  He served in that capacity until his death, and was known far and wide thereafter as “Judge Harris”.  He was highly lauded by the citizens of Brunswick, as well as by his professional contemporaries of the Brunswick Bar, in several public memorials and his obituary.

Buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, Brunswick, with his wife.

 

MAJ Jesse Campbell McDonald, PACS (4 July 1832 - 18 April 1918)

Born in McIntosh County to Alexander and Margaret Campbell McDonald.  Resident of Brunswick, Georgia.  In 1860 he held 8 slaves and his father held 36.  Owned and operated “Tuscavilla” Plantation in western Glynn County in the Jamaica community near Waynesville.

Married:
        (1) 18 May 1858 to Martha Morton (1 May 1840-1 Apr 1880), daughter of William Morton of Athens.  She died in Rome GA.
        (2)  27 June 1881 to Sarah Jane Hillyer (31 December 1849-29 May 1908), daughter of Dr. Shaler G. Hillyer, a Professor of Theology at Mercer University.  

2^nd LT (?) - 1^st LT - CAPT - MAJ, PACS:
Executive Officer: “Wayne Rangers”, first commander: “Shiloh Troops”, later Regimental Operations Officer: 4^th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Cavalry.  Captured at Waynesboro, Burke County, Georgia, 4 December 1864 during the regiment’s operations against Sherman during his “March to the Sea”.

Post-war: Hardware merchant in Rome, Georgia, where he was one of the originators, and for 15 years a trustee, of Shorter Female College.  In the fall of 1887 moved to Quitman where he was involved in farming and banking, then moved to Fort Valley in 1895 where he helped found the Dow Law Bank and served as Cashier.  Physical attributes: 5’10” tall, blue eyes, light hair, fair complexion.

Buried Oaklawn Cemetery, near Fort Valley, Georgia.

 

MAJ & Surgeon Richard Berrien Burroughs, CSA (19 January 1833 - 11 September 1901)

Born in Savannah, Georgia to Joseph Hallett Burroughs and Valeria Gibbons Berrien.  Father of six children, three with each wife; married his paternal first cousin.

Married:
(1) 18 April 1857 Ella Jane Burroughs (30 June 1839 - 13 August 1868) daughter of Oliver Sturges Burroughs and Anna Constant Maxwell.  She died in Astoria, Queens, New York.
(2) Florida Lewis (1833 – 14 April 1895) died in Jacksonville, Florida.

Educated at Franklin College (now University of Georgia), a classmate of later MGEN John B. Gordon, CSA, class of 1853. MD degree - Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1856.

CAPT (Assistant Surgeon) - MAJ (Surgeon), PACS:
Served in 63^rd GA Infantry at Thunderbolt, Georgia, transferred to Clinch’s 4^th Georgia Volunteer Cavalry, probably in late 1862 but no later than September 1863, when the regiment moved to Camp Mercer at Screven.  Also reportedly served with CAPT J.J. Dickison’s command in FL, probably during the 4^th GA’s service in Florida following the Battle of Olustee.

Post-war:  practiced medicine in Jacksonville, Florida.  Chief Surgeon, Florida Central & Peninsular Railroad; VP and President -  Florida Medical Association, served on the city council of Jacksonville, prime mover in establishment of Jacksonville Hospital, trustee of Confederate Soldiers’ Home, active in SCV.

Died in Norfolk, Virginia, at the home of his son, Joseph Hallet Burroughs.

Buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery, Savannah, Georgia.

 

CAPT Nicholas Bayard Clinch, PACS  (1832 - 15 March 1888)

Born 1832 in Louisiana to brevet BGEN Duncan L. Clinch, Sr., USA, and Eliza Bayard McIntosh of Camden County, Georgia.

BA 1849 - South Carolina College, Columbia, South Carolina (now University of South Carolina).

PVT-1^st LT - CAPT, PACS:
PVT 18^th Battalion, Georgia Volunteer Infantry, then Adjutant: 4^th Georgia Volunteer Cavalry and, finally, Commander: Clinch’s Artillery Company, or “Clinch’s Light Battery”.

Living in Camden County 1868.  Died 15 March 1888.  Burial place unknown, but probably in the family vault at Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah.

 

CAPT Alexander Smith Atkinson, PACS (19 January 1815 - 3 August 1894)

Born to Burwell Atkinson and Nancy Ann Felder in Liberty County where they were refugeeing due to an Indian uprising near their home in Camden County.  Uncle of CAPT N.A. Brown.

Graduate:  Franklin College (now University of Georgia) 1839.

Married: 5 May 1842 to Mary Ann McDonald, daughter of Governor Charles James McDonald and Anne Franklin, at the Executive Mansion in Milledgeville.

Practiced Law before and after the war.  State Representative from Camden County 1840-41.  State Senator 1855-1860.  Justice, Inferior court 1854-1862.

CAPT, PACS:
First commander: “Camden Mounted Rifles”.

His son, 2^nd LT John Franklin Atkinson, of “Camden Mounted Rifles”, died of disease 11 October 1863.

Owner and operator “Incachee” Plantation, died there.  Buried at Homeward Cemetery, Camden County.

 

CAPT Nathan Atkinson Brown , PACS (31 December 1836 - 23 February 1866)

Born in Camden County to David Brown and Elizabeth Atkinson. Nephew of CAPT A.S. Atkinson. Educated at Georgia Military Institute, Marietta, Georgia.

Married Louisa A. (or T. for Tupper) Nicholes, daughter of Henry H. (or J.) Nicholes (also spelled Nichols) and Eliza, on 12 March 1861.

1^st LT - CAPT, PACS:
Executive Officer, then second and final commander: “Camden Mounted Rifles”.  Commanded the regiment at the Battle of Olustee after COL Clinch’s wounding early in the fighting.  According to another source quoting a biography of his son and namesake (from “A History of Savannah and South Georgia” by William Harden, 1913), throughout the war he carried a sword worn by his grand-uncle John Atkinson during the Revolutionary War and by his uncle Nathan Atkinson in the war of 1812.

Died 23 February 1866 in Camden County of smallpox contracted from a visiting former comrade. Buried Homeward Cemetery, Camden County.

 

CAPT David Crum, PACS (23 October 1837 - 28 September 1864)

Born in Camden County to James Grey Crum and Marie Louise Clark.

PVT- 1^st SGT - 2nd LT - 1^st LT - CAPT, PACS:
Second commander: “Shiloh Troops”.  According to Vocelle, he died in camp during 1864, cause and place unknown, as is his burial site.  An analysis of the official records of the war indicates that he was possibly mortally wounded in action in mid-August 1864 at the main ford on the Connesauga River, near Dalton, GA and subsequently died in camp, either near Stockbridge, about 10 miles east of Jonesborough, where the regiment had been camped since the early part of September, or near Palmetto, where General John B. Hood had been concentrating his army since the 19^th.

 

CAPT Edwin Pickford Crum, PACS (10 July 1839 – 3 January 1897)

Born in Camden County to James Grey Crum and Marie Louise Clark.

PVT - 1^st SGT - CAPT, PACS:
Third and final commander: “Shiloh Troops” in 1864, succeeding his deceased brother David.  Wounded at Waynesboro, GA, 3 December 1864.

Died in Williamson County Texas, buried in the Odd-Fellows Cemetery in Georgetown.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: Vocelle gives parental information on the two Crums as David and (?) Liles Crum, and the name Pitchford for the younger of the two.  However, both the 1850 and 1860 census data for Camden County show a family of that surname with brothers David and Edwin (or E.P.), born about 1838 and 1840, respectively, and with parents James Grey and Marie Louise (or M. L.) Clark Crum.  Further, an internet posting, which lists what appears to be the above family with pre-war residence in Camden County Georgia and post-war residence in Texas (from c.1874), in which state Vocelle puts “Pitchford’s” death, shows the parents as James Grey and Marie Louise Clark Crum, and lists E.P. as Edwin Pickford.  This would appear to be the correct family information.  Further, the foregoing family names and relationships, as well as the birth and death dates, have been corroborated in a telephone conversation on 16 January 2008 with Ernest D. Crum, Jr., of Buda TX, a descendant of PVT Ernest Crum of Co. K who was the younger brother of the above Crums.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CAPT William Miles Hazzard, PACS (1833 - 23 December 1904)

Born in South Carolina to William W. Hazzard and Mary Black Miles.

Educated at Western Military Institute of Kentucky.

Married Emily St. Pierre Trenholm of Charleston, South Carolina at DeGreffin (or DeGriffen) Plantation near Columbia, SC 21 June 1864.  Her father was the immensely wealthy George A. Trenholm (1807-1876), a partner in the premier blockade-running firm of the South - Fraser, Trenholm & Co., who named one of his ships after his daughter Emily.  He later served as Confederate Secretary of the Treasury.

Pre-war:  Planter on Saint Simon’s Island.  Owned 14 slaves in 1860, and his father owned 54.

1^st SGT - CAPT, PACS:
Second and final commander: “Glynn Guards”.  His brother, 2^nd LT Richard C. Hazzard, was killed at Fort McAllister 13 December 1864 with Clinch’s Artillery Company.  Another brother, CAPT Elliott W. Hazzard, was the commander of Company H, 47^th Georgia Volunteers, the “Liberty Rangers”, which was raised in Glynn County.

Post-war:  Returned to the family roots in Georgetown County, South Carolina where he resumed planting, with considerable success.  His father-in-law had purchased several Georgetown area plantations during the war and conveyed much of the property to his son-in-law.  Hazzard operated rice plantations “Beneventum”, “Keithfield”, “Peru”, “Cumbee”, and “Annandale” after the war, the latter of which was the family home.  He was also a director of the Georgetown Rice Milling Company, of which he was a founder.  He and his Hazzard relatives became heirs to a very substantial fortune from a British relative in the early 1900s.  Reportedly, it included $18M in cash and considerable property.

Died Georgetown, South Carolina.  Buried in Charleston, South Carolina.

 

CAPT Enoch Daniel Hendry, PACS (28 September 1822 - 14 June 1909)

Born in Liberty County Georgia to Robert Hendry, Jr. and Nancy Daniel.

Married:  5 December 1847 to Caroline Eliza Staley, daughter of George N. Staley and Eliza.

Moved to Blackshear in 1859, became a farmer and merchant.  Delegate to the Secession Convention, voted for Secession.

CAPT, PACS:
First commander: “Atlantic and Gulf Guards”.  Later organized and promoted to CAPT: “Pierce Mounted Volunteers”, an unattached component of the state forces.

Post-war:  Justice of the Peace, Pierce County Inferior Court 1863-65.  Buried Blackshear City Cemetery.

 

CAPT Thomas Spalding Hopkins, PACS (15 June 1818 -12 November 1904)

Born in Bellville, McIntosh County, to Francis Hopkins and Rebecca Sayre.

Married: (1) May 1839 to Julia Mary DuFour (died 15 October 1846) of St. Mary’s, Georgia.
               (2) 14 Nov 1847 to Jane Elizabeth Gignilliat, Glynn County.

Graduate: Franklin College (now the University of Georgia), South Carolina Medical College, and Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia.

Son of the prominent Hopkins family of McIntosh County (his grandfather Francis had been a militia general and state politician, his great-grandfather of the same name had been a British admiral), Dr. Hopkins was the author of many treatises on medicine and science, gaining both state and national recognition.  Practiced medicine in Wayne County prior to the war, living on his plantation “Sherwood” near Waynesville.  Traveled to southwest Georgia in late 1863 seeking refuge for his family to avoid their exposure to the dangers of war, relocating them to Thomasville in January 1864.  In spite of holding a considerable number of slaves, he was an unsuccessful anti-Secession candidate to the Georgia Secession Convention in January 1861.

Served in a militia company, the “Phoenix Riflemen”, of Savannah during his youth, then as a surgeon to the Georgia militia during the Okefenokee Campaign against the Seminole Indians of 1838-39.  Also served during the Mexican War as a contract Acting Assistant Surgeon (roughly equivalent to a reserve CAPT, U.S Army Medical Corps in modern terms) in the 9^th U.S. Infantry at Fort Brooke, near Tampa, Florida, for the months of September to November 1845.

CAPT (Line), then CAPT (Assistant Surgeon) Medical Corps, PACS:
First commander: “Wayne Rangers”.  After leaving the Clinch command in the spring of 1862, organized and appointed CAPT: “Mercer Partisans”, Co. A 24^th Battalion GA Volunteer Cavalry, which in turn became a part of the 7^th GA Volunteer Cavalry.  Reportedly at Federal bombardment of Fort McAllister in March 1863.  The 7^th GA Cavalry was ordered to the Army of Northern Virginia in about March 1864, but Hopkins, by then aged 46 years, left active campaigning and transferred to the Confederate Army Medical Service, becoming an Assistant Surgeon, CSA, and was stationed at Andersonville POW Camp until the close of hostilities.

Member, American Medical Association, Mayor of Thomasville 1874 - 1876.

Died in Thomasville.

Notes: His son Francis William Hopkins was a 5^th SGT in the “Wayne Rangers” at age 18.  Later transferred to the McIntosh Cavalry, which became a unit of the 24^th Battalion GA Volunteer Cavalry, afterwards absorbed into the 7^th GA Volunteer Cavalry, where he became commander of Company G and was promoted to CAPT.  Served in Virginia, was captured, and became one of the “Immortal 600”, a group of Confederate prisoners of war that were purposely exposed by the Federals to the fire of the Confederates defending Charleston SC.  Dr. Hopkins’ brother O.C. Hopkins was a CAPT and commander of Company K in the 5^th GA Cavalry.

 

CAPT Robert Newton King, PACS (23 March 1831- 5 June 1897)

Born in Camden County to James King and Margaret O’Neil.

Married:
    (1) 1853 to Anna Maria Johnson (13 September 1831 – 25 December 1875), daughter of Peter C. Johnson and Ellen Graham.
    (2) 18 August 1882 to Caroline Oxley (May 1857 – after 1920) daughter of Elias J. Oxley & Margaret Jane Mills.

1^st LT - CAPT, PACS:
1^st LT: “Okefenokee Rifles”, 13^th Georgia Volunteer Infantry, 15 August 1861 - 8 May 1862.  First and only commander: Co. E, 4^th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Cavalry.

Six feet, two inches tall, “straight as an Indian”, fair complexion, black hair, blue eyes.

Post-war:  Served in both branches of the state legislature, House in 1875-76, Senate in 1881-82

Died at his plantation “Woodlawn” in Camden County in 1897.  Buried at Zion Cemetery, Camden County.

 

CAPT Alexander Lang, PACS (8 September 1835 - 12 March 1916)

Born in Camden County to Isaac Lang, Jr. and Ann Caroline Atkinson.

Never married.

3^rd SGT  - 1^st LT - CAPT, PACS:
Third and last commander: “Wayne Rangers”.  According to Vocelle, “saw hard service around Atlanta and near Charleston, S.C.”.  Brothers Richard, Robert, and Nathaniel served in “Camden Mounted Rifles”.  Brother Felder Lang was 2^nd LT, “Camden Chasseurs”.

Post-war:  Served in state legislature from Camden County 1888 - 89.

Died 12 March 1916, buried Homeward Cemetery, Camden County.

 

CAPT George Lang, (Sr.) PACS (23 Nov 1806 - 1872)

Born to Isaac Lang, Sr. and Catherine Wildes in Camden County.

Married Mary Thomas (2 March 1812 – unknown), daughter of Joseph Thomas & Sarah Jones, on 5 March 1829.  His son, George Lang, Jr., was a Medical Doctor who served as an enlisted man in Clinch’s regiment.

Buried Sunset Cemetery in Valdosta, Georgia, alongside his wife.

CAPT PACS:

First commander: “Camden Chasseurs”.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes on the Atkinson, Brown, and Lang Families:

According to Camden’s Challenge, Camden County Planter Isaac Lang, Jr. and his wife Catherine (or Caroline) Atkinson Lang, had nine sons, at least eight of which appear to have served in the Confederate Army, all of them possibly in the 4^th GA Cavalry.  They were:

- John Atkinson Lang (12 August 1825 - 12 January 1891), possibly PVT J. Lang, Company D.
- William Lang (18 June 1831 - 18 December 1893?), possibly PVT Willis Lang, Company D.
- Isaac Newton Lang (2 August 1833 - 10 December 1888), possibly PVT I. Lang, Company E.
- Alexander Lang (8 September 1835 - 12 March 1916), CAPT, Company A.
- Nathan Lang (21 May or March 1839 - 2 or 3 September 1907), possibly PVT N. Lang,  Company C.
- Richard Lang (8 November 1840 or 1847 - 23 June 1907), PVT, Company C.
- Felder Lang (13 August 1842 - 8 March 1919), 2^nd LT, Company D.
- Robert Lang (26 September 1844 - 17 January 1929), PVT, Company C. Tombstone says Confederate Vet.
- Nathaniel Lang (25 October 1847 - 13 October 1929 or 23 June 1935), also possibly PVT N. Lang, Company C. Tombstone says Confederate Vet.

The following members of the 4^th GA were all closely-related by virtue of their descent from John Atkinson, RS:

- CAPT Alexander Smith Atkinson and his son 2^nd LT John Franklin Atkinson, both of Company C.
- CAPT Nathan Atkinson Brown, who took command of Company C from CAPT Alexander S. Atkinson in 1862.
- All the above Langs who served in the regiment.

Both Brown and these Langs were nephews of Alexander S. Atkinson, being the sons of his sisters, Elizabeth and Caroline (or Catherine), respectively.  These Langs were also nephews of CAPT George Lang, being the sons of his brother Isaac.

All of the above in turn were related to COL Edmund Nathan Atkinson of the 26^th GA Volunteer Infantry, he being the son of Alexander S. Atkinson’s first-cousin Edmund.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CAPT Alexander McMillan, PACS (1813 – 4 January 1874)

Born in North Carolina, of unknown parentage.

Married Mary Strickland (24 December 1849), daughter of James Buchanan Strickland and Eliza Brewton of Wayne County, on 5 October 1865.

1^st LT - 2^nd LT - CAPT, PACS:
Third and last commander: “Atlantic and Gulf Guards”.

Buried in the Blackshear Cemetery.

 

CAPT John Calhoun Nicholls, PACS (25 April 1834 - 25 December 1893)

Born in Clinton, Jones County, to Simon Wood Nicholls and Margaret Waver.

Married:
(1) Namie Clopton (8 April 1833 – 20 April 1881) daughter of John Bacon Clopton & Maria Gaitskell Foster; of Richmond, VA.
(2) Ida Catherine Acosta on 1 May 1882, daughter of Eustace John Acosta & Catherine Isabella Hatcher.

Graduated from the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA in 1855, admitted to the Georgia bar in 1855. Also engaged as a planter.

CAPT, PACS:
First commander:  “Seaboard Guards”, original 13^h GA Infantry.  Not re-elected at reorganization.
First and final commander: Company I, 4^th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Cavalry.

Post-war:  Lawyer, Member State Constitutional Convention 1865, State Senator (1870-75), Delegate National Democratic convention 1876, Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives for two terms (1879-81, 1883-85).

Died at Blackshear, buried Blackshear Cemetery.

 

CAPT John Readdick, PACS (13 March 1833 or 1838 - 22 August 1909 or 19 February 1910)

Born in Camden County, son of Peter Readdick and Alafred H. Abby Wright, Camden County Planters.

Married Madison Amanda Reed Gowen (21 June 1851 – 22 August 1909) on 15 April 1868; daughter of William Gowen & Rebecca Green.  His sister Sarah married his wife’s brother, 2^nd LT Barney Gowen of the “Camden Mounted Rifles”.

CAPT, PACS:
Per Vocelle, he enlisted at an unknown rank in an infantry regiment, was wounded near Richmond in 1862, returned to recuperate at his home at Owens Ferry, Camden County.  Per Camden’s Challenge, his brothers Pete, George, and Frank reportedly also served, Pete being killed in action and George having been taken prisoner and dying at Fort Delaware.  Second and last commander: “Camden Chasseurs”.

Per Camden’s Challenge, buried in Ceylon Cemetery.

 

CAPT Allen C. Strickland, PACS (2 March 1824 - 14 December 1862)

Born in Pierce County to James “Black Jim” Strickland and Elenor Smith, local prominent farmers and community leaders.  The elder Strickland had been a state Senator and a Justice of the Inferior Court.

Married on 21 September 1846 to Cassia Sweat, daughter of CAPT James A. Sweat, Sr., a renowned local militia leader and Indian fighter, and Elizabeth Newbern.

CAPT, PACS:
Second Commander:  “Atlantic and Gulf Guards”.

Died 14 December 1862 near Blackshear of an undisclosed internal infection or injury, possibly resulting from an arduous horse-back trip home from his duty station on the coast to determine the condition of his typhoid-stricken family.  Funeral preached at the Academy Church, by his brother-in -law, Rev. William A. McDonald, the recently-retired LCOL of the 26^th GA Infantry.  Buried at Shiloh Primitive Baptist Church near Blackshear.

Both CAPT Strickland and LCOL McDonald share common ancestors with the compiler.

 

CAPT James Peyton Turner, PACS (14 October 1821 - 20 February 1882)

Born in Jasper County Georgia.  Son of James B. and Mary A. Turner, originally from Virginia.  Removed to Stewart County with parents at age 12.

Married on 22 April 1841 to Amanda Melvina Brown (1825 – May 1905), daughter of Benjamin H. Brown & Mary Miller, of Stewart County; then began the study of medicine at Oglethorpe College, Savannah, returning to Stewart County after graduation to practice medicine.  After 1853 he removed to Thomas County, continuing his medical practice.

CAPT, PACS:
First and only commander: “Georgia Dragoons”.  Reportedly at the Battle of Olustee, where his horse was said to have been  “shot from under him, his sword torn from his side, and his clothing riddled ”, as well as John’s Island, where he “commanded the left wing of the regiment during the memorable charge of 9 July”, the Atlanta campaign, including Jonesborough, the March to the Sea, and Waynesboro, where he was reported to have been wounded, “but remained in the saddle until he arrived near Savannah, Ga.”.  Described by his biographer as having “served with distinction, and won the respect and love of his comrades for his valor and kindness”.

Post-war:  Continued his medical practice and farmed near Boston, in Thomas County.  Elected State Senator from the 7^th District (Brooks, Thomas, and Colquitt Counties) about 1878.

5 feet 10 inches tall, dark hair and complexion, blue eyes.

Buried at the Summerhill Baptist Church Cemetery, Thomas County.

 

CAPT Joseph Sinclair Wiggins, PACS (6 November 1830 - 2 April 1874)

Born in Waynesville, Georgia. Son of Major Joseph Wiggins and Martha Stafford, prominent citizens of Waynesville.

Married Sarah Louisa Morton (1830 – 1893) of Athens daughter of William M. Morton on 6 May 1851.

Attended Wayne County Academy and Franklin College (now University of Georgia), graduating in 1851.

1^st SGT - 2^nd LT - CAPT, PACS:
Second commander: “Wayne Rangers”. Resigned August 1863 to serve as State representative for Wayne County 1863-65.

Post-war:  Became a prominent lawyer, then Solicitor-General of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit 1865-68.

Died and buried in Waynesville.

 

CAPT Thomas Spalding Wylly, PACS (21 January 1831 - 13 April 1922)

Born in McIntosh County to planters Alexander William Wylly and Elizabeth Sarah Spalding, descendants of several prominent early southeastern Georgia families.  His maternal grandfather and namesake was the prominent and wealthy Sapelo Island planter, Thomas Spalding.  He was an unusually vigorous and adventuresome young man.  At age 18, with the strong endorsement of his grandfather but with similarly strong trepidations on the part of his parents, he traveled alone to the Midwest, then went overland in a wagon train via Utah and the Mojave Desert to California where he participated in the famous Gold Rush of 1849.  He mined on Weber Creek near Placerville for two years, returning home via Nicaragua in 1853, and then assumed the life of a coastal planter at his family plantation “The Forrest” near Darien.  Late in life (at about the age of 75) he wrote his reminiscences of the experience, entitled “Westward Ho in ’49”, which were later published by his grandson, T.S. Wylly III. 

Married in 1854 to Marian Johanna Doherty, daughter of Major Richard Daniel Doherty, of the British Army, and his wife Mary Lavery.

1^st LT - CAPT - PACS:
Enlisted as 1^st LT in Company G, 29^th GA Volunteer Infantry, early 1861 for one year, promoted to CAPT.  Later served as Executive Officer, “Georgia Dragoons”, then first and only commander:  Co. H, 4^th GA Cavalry.

Seriously wounded in the shoulder and neck at battle of Jonesborough, Georgia, 31 Aug 1864, rescued from the battlefield after the regiment’s retreat by Regimental Surgeon Richard B. Burroughs.

Lived in McIntosh County post-war, operating a small farm, and was active in the state militia, along with his sons Thomas Jr. and Richard.  Died at the home of his son George on Staten Island, New York, buried in Saint Andrews Cemetery, Darien, Georgia.

 

1^st LT Rowan Pafford, PACS (10 April 1825 - 9 January 1890)

Born in Tennessee, to James Pafford and Wealthy Corbitt, his father migrated to South Georgia in 1838 in conjunction with the selling of horses and mules, probably because his wife (Rowan’s mother) had substantial family ties to the area.

Married:
    (1) Elizabeth Smith (1823 – 6 June 1866) in 1846, daughter of William Smith (RS) and Bineta Stephens.
    (2) Frances (or Fannie) Corbitt (25 March 1836 – 7 May 1899) in 1866, daughter of Newsom Corbitt and Pollie Smith.

Justice of the Peace, Ware and Clinch Counties 1849-1852, Delegate to the state legislature from Coffee County 1855 - 1856, Delegate to the Secession Convention from Coffee County where he voted against Secession.

PVT - 1^st LT, PACS:
Private, “Forest Rangers”, 13^th Georgia Volunteers, then Executive Officer: Co. E, 4^th GA Cavalry.  Elected to the State Senate and resigned his commission in the Army 26 October 1863.

Post-war:  An active Mason, he also served as a delegate to the state Constitutional Convention in 1866.

Buried Spring Head Methodist Church Cemetery, Atkinson County.

 

1^st LT William Philip Schirm, PACS (1836 - 31 May 1896)

Born in the German state of Hessen-Nassau, he came to the United Sates in 1857 where, having the benefit of an excellent education, he became an educator of some note in North Georgia.

Married:
    (1) Caroline Jane Smith (1838 – 25 December 1868) on 18 October 1866; daughter of David John Smith and Jane Ann Cole.
    (2) Ellen M. Lovell on 20 January 1876; daughter of Edward Lovell and Mary Bates.

PVT - 1^st SGT - 1^st LT, PACS:
Enlisted in the “Wayne Rangers” and, having served as a youth in the German Army, was soon promoted to 1^st Sergeant.  With the formation of Clinch’s Artillery Company on 1 December 1863, he was elected 1^st LT and Executive Officer, in which capacity he served until his wounding and capture at the fall of Fort McAllister 13 December 1864.  He was released in June 1865.

Post-war:  Active in UCV, the Savannah Benevolent Association, a deacon in the 1^st Presbyterian Church, a Director of the Chatham Real Estate & Improvement Company, and associated with the Wilcox and Gibbes Guano Company.

Died in Savannah, buried in Bonaventure Cemetery.

 

Bibliography

W.H. Andrews
1^st Sgt., Co. M, 1^st Georgia Regulars; Diary 1861 - 1865; Privately printed by the author, East Atlanta, Georgia. 2 Aug. 1891

Robert C. Black
The Railroads of Georgia in the Confederate War Effort; The Journal of Southern History, 1947

Dean Broome -
History of Pierce County Georgia; Broome Printing, Blackshear, Georgia, 1973

Nathan Atkinson Brown
Letters to and from his wife Louisa Nichols Brown.   Unpublished manuscript, folder 808, from the unpublished manuscript section of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia

The Camden County Historical Commission
(Compiler - Marguerite Readdick, Editors - Eloise Bailey and Virginia Proctor) Camden’s Challenge- A History of Camden County Georgia; Paramount Press 1976

 Margaret Davis Cate
Our Todays and Yesterdays-A History of Brunswick and the Golden Isles; Glover Brothers, 1930

The Century Magazine
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 1887

Duncan L. Clinch, Jr.
Letters:

(1)  Undated (probably about 1887), to the Editor “Morning News”; Found in the Vertical File, Library of the University of Florid; Tallahassee, Florida

(2)  April 1887, to his sons; From the personal collection of his descendant, Mrs. Francis Clinch Jones.  Note: Additional copies are held in the Department of Special Collections, George Mathers Library, University of Florida, Tallahassee

David Coles, Principal Writer
The Battle of Olustee and The Olustee Battlefield Site-A Brief History; Historical Research Committee; Olustee Battlefield Citizens Support Organization; Renaissance Printing, Gainesville, Florida 1992, 1995

David J. Coles
Far From Fields of Glory: Military Operations in Florida and During the Civil War, 1864-1865; Ph D. Dissertation, Florida State University, 1996

Henry Steele Commager, Editor
Illustrated History of the Civil War; Promontory Press, New York, 1976

Joseph H. Crute, Jr.
Units of the Confederate States Army; Midlothian VA, Derwent Press, 1989

Richard N. Current, Editor
The Confederacy; Selections from the Simon & Schuster Four-Volume Encyclopedia of the Confederacy; MacMillan Reference USA; Simon & Schuster 1993, NY

W.C. Dodson, Editor
Campaigns of Wheeler and His Cavalry; Hudgins Publishing Company, Atlanta, Georgia, 1899

John P Dyer
“Fighting Joe” Wheeler; Louisiana State University Press, University, Louisiana,1941

Clement E. Evans, Editor
Confederate Military History, Vol. 7, Georgia; Broadfoot, Wilmington, NC, 1987

Michael Fellman
Citizen Sherman, A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman; Random House, New York, 1995

Julia Johnson Fisher
Diary, 1 January to 22 August 1864; Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC

Alfred H. Guernsey and Henry M. Alden - Editors
Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War; Gramercy Books, New York, NY, 1866

George Alexander Heard
St. Simons Island During the War Between the States; The Georgia Historical Quarterly, April 19, 1923

Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Army Life in a Black Regiment; Fields, Osgood & Co.,  Boston, 1870, (re-printed by Time-Life Books in 1982)

John B. Hood
Advance and Retreat -Personal Experiences in the United States and Confederate Armies; Konecky & Konecky, New York, undated

Folks Huxford
Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia; Seven volumes of Southeastern Georgia genealogies, published from 1951 to 1975; Additional volumes since published by the Huxford Genealogical Society, Homerville, Georgia

Alton J. Murray
South Georgia Rebels, a History of the 26^th Georgia Volunteer Infantry; Allied Printing, Inc., 1976

William H. Nulty
Confederate Florida-The Road to Olustee, University of Alabama Press,1990.

William Frederick Penniman
Reminiscences of Personal Experiences During the Civil War Period; Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC

Mary E. Rudd, Editor
“Stewart Letters” - the letters of Private Thomas J. Stewart of Company H,  Clinch’s 4^th Georgia Cavalry; In the unpublished Collection of Rudd Family Civil War Letters, Museum of Southern History, Jacksonville Florida

Lewis G. Schmidt
The Battle of Olustee, from his series The Civil War In Florida, A Military History Volume II, Privately printed by the author,1989

Stewart Sifakis
Compendium of the Confederate Armies, South Carolina and Georgia; Facts on File, 1995

Time-Life Books
Alexandria, Virginia:  Echoes of Glory, Civil War Battle Atlas, 1996

The Civil War--- Confederate Ordeal; The Southern Home Front, 1989

he Blockade; Runners and Raiders, 1983

Death in the Trenches; Grant at Petersburg, New York, New York:

The LIFE History of the United States, Volume 4: The Growing Years, 1789-1829, 1963

C.T. Trowell and Lorraine Fussell -
Exploring the Okefenokee, Railroads of the Okefenokee Realm; Occasional Paper No. 8, South Georgia College, Douglas, Georgia, 1998

United States Government
Compiled Military Service Records, National Archives, Washington, DC

Note:  The records of Clinch’s 4^th Georgia Cavalry are found in Microfilm Group M266 (Georgia), Rolls 21 to 26 (4^th {Clinch’s} Cavalry).  The records of Captain Enoch Hendry’s mounted Pierce County company (later company G of Clinch’s regiment) are in Roll 73 (Captain Hendry’s Co., Cavalry {Atlantic and Gulf Guards}).

United States Navy Department
The War of Rebellion-Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies (ORN); 30 volumes, Washington DC, 1894-1922

United States War Department
The War of Rebellion-Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (ORA); 128 parts in 70 volumes, Washington DC, 1880-1901

The Official Military Atlas of the Civil War; (Accompanies the above volumes), Reprinted by Gramercy Books, NY, 1983

James Thomas Vocelle
History of Camden County; 1914.  (Reprinted January 1989 by the Camden Printing Company, St. Marys Georgia).

World Book Encyclopedia
Various articles on the history of the North American Continent, Georgia, and the American Civil War

 

Websites:

David Hopkins-Hopkins Family Website (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~randalhopkins/ )

Note: This is a marvelous presentation of the family genealogy and heritage of the descendants of some of the slaves of Doctor Thomas S. Hopkins, first commander of the “Wayne Rangers”.

The National Park Service “Soldiers and Sailors System”- (http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/)

The Camden County, Georgia, GENWEB site- (http://www.rootsweb.com/~gacamden/)

Glynn County, Georgia Genealogy & History at GlynnGen.com - (http://www.glynngen.com/)

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