The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-02-19
A SKETCH OF ALABAMA
 SOLDIERS IN CIVIL WAR

1 wrung all hearts by his piteous cries. begging to be taken to his home in Ala l night.
 l All or the dead both sides who were buried there were afterward taken up
 anu carried to their homes.
 do not know the exact number of the l ueao and wounded in that skirmish (his- tory claims the Confederates lost 45 mem,
 put the federals must have had more 1 Wouhued. General Rousseau made hos
 pital out of the home of MT, Thomas hnghsh, using the house and negro cab
 ms and 1t was two or three days before ne sot all of his men away, while General 1 w heeier that night, after the fight took
 ms men and went scooting on to the Ten nessee river into Alabama
 Ignorant on the subject of troops from
 Alabama, l wrote to Hon. Thomas E. ] Wlllets Of Anniston and asked him to | write the article for me- He replied that ne had to attend the supreme court, but
 referred me to Brewers "Great Men of
 Alabama Mir. Willets Is said to be one
 or the best posted men on the subject in Alabama
 l Not finding Brewers history in the pub
 lie library, l wrote to our state his, torlan MT. Owen, asking the same. He
 also declined the honor q thought that accommodating me they would be honor
 ing themselves. but kindly sent me sey-
 eral pamphlets. In one of them is an ex- planatory article on the First Alabama
 regiment the history of the organiza
 ton and the part it played in the civil
 war from the beginning to the end. by
 Edward Young McMorries, Ph. D. I com 1 meneed reading the article with a great l deal of pleasure, but finished 1t in
 wrathful indignation as an unjust fling 1 at the Kindness. geenrosity, loyalty and l hospitality of the people of my native state, of which I shall speak later.
 | was growing desperate when a good l angel told me to go and ask Col Sam Will John to tell me about the troops from Alabama did and Colonel John,
 In a fascinating. convincing manner pe
 culiarly his own. gave me most of the | material for this sketch. He convinced me that there were a few Alabamians in the Confederate army and that they | fought bravely McCorvey says that although there were some divisions among the people of Alabama upon the question of secession, as Indicated by the vote upon the ordi- l nance of secession when the civil war
 opened, they were practically united In
 nearly all of the counties In the support or the Confederate government, and the state furnished over O0O0 soldiers for the Confederate armies. Among these were
 such distinguished officers as Rodes,
 Kelly, Clanton, Clayton. Pelham and scores of others who might be mentioned ] Admiral Semmes who commanded the Alabama in her famous duel with the
 Kearsarge off the coast of France, June 19, 1864, was an Alabamian. In council as
 well as in the field and afloat Alabamp contributed able men to the service of
 the Confederacy-such men, for instance as Leroy Pope Walker and Thomas Hill Watts. who were members of the cabinet
 of President Davis In the opening days of the civil war
 the people of Alabama only heard the sound of the conflict in the distance; but before the close they saw much of it's realities. One of the most important na- val battles of the war occurred in Mobile bay, August 5 1864, when Admiral Farra-
 guet defeated the Confederate fleet com
 manded by Admiral Buchanan. Heavy | fighting occurred on the eastern shore of Mobile bay, at Spanish fort and Blakely
 in March and April, 1865 There were | many important military operations
 throughout north Alabama, the most noted | of which was the capture May. 1863, of l 100 federal troops by tho Confederate General N. B. Forrest in the eastern part of Cherokee county; and in the clos ing days of the war there were skir- H1fSHeS or DdttleS at ElAtOn, Tuscaloosa, Pleasant Ridge and Selma On the 4th of May, 1865, Gen. Richard
 Taylor surrendered the military depart
 ment of which Alabama formed part to i the federal General Canby, and this put an end to military operations In the state. | There were sixty-two regiments of in- fantry from the state of Alabama four
 teen regiments of cavalry. twenty-three
 battalions of artillery. and there were I.,fI
 iments, formed during the four years |
 consisting of 13O,OO0 or more men, Of
 these the Third, Fourth, Fifth. Sixth, |
 Seventh, Eighth. Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh. |
 Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth. Eff |
 teenth, Twenty-sixth, Forty-fourth, For
 ty-seventh and Forty-eighth were from
 their organization In General Lees army | in Virginia until the surrender.
 When General Longstreet went back to | Virginia after being sent by General |
 Lee with endorsements to General Bragg | at Chickamauga, he took with him | Gracies brigade, composed of the Ftty- | first, Fifty-ninth and Sixtieth regiments | and the Twenty-third Alabama battalion. |
 which consisted of three companies of |
 Billiards legion. and they remained in |
 General Lees army until the surrender The Fourth Alabama regiment diS.in- |
 guished itself at Manassas. The sixth. |
 "Gordon's own," won renown by saving l
 Lees army at Sharpsburg The Eighth, |
 Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh and Twelfth | regiments formed the famous Wilcox 1
 brigade. It was these men who saved | General Lees army at Chancellorsvila
 Col Robert z. Jones of Selma, fann- | iarly called the old war-horse of the | Twelfth" was colonel of the Twelfth |
 Alabama regiment. He was killed at | Seven Pines.
 Laws brigade the Fourth Eiftnpptn
 Forty-fourth Forty-seventh and Forty | eighth, penetrated farther into the federal | lines at Gettysburg than any other bri- i gade. The guns taken by this brigade | were brought off the field. General Pick | cit In his memorable charge there had on |
 his extreme right Laws brigade. on his | left Wilcox. Wilcox's brigade suffered at | Salem in the thirty days fighting in tho | Wilderness. General Rodes of Tusca- | laana nIx hra snldiar otrnIIn.I |