Alexander P . Stewart Alexander Peter Stewart ( October 2 , 1821 – August 30 , 1908 ) was a career United States Army officer , college professor , and a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War . Early life and career . Stewart was born in Rogersville , Tennessee . He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1842 ( 12th of 56 cadets ) and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 3rd U . S . Artillery . He resigned his commission on May 31 , 1845 to become a professor of mathematics and experimental philosophy at Cumberland University in Lebanon , Tennessee , and later attained the same position at the University of Nashville . Civil War service . At the start of the American Civil War in 1861 , although he was a strong anti - secessionist Whig politically , Stewart accepted a commission as major in the artillery of the Tennessee Militia on May 17 . Shortly afterwards he entered the Confederate Army on August 15 as a major of artillery . Stewart was appointed a brigadier general on November 8 and assigned to command the 2nd brigade , 2nd division , Columbus District , of the Confederate Department No . Two ( the precursor to the Dept . of Tennessee . ) Stewart held this position from November 16 until that December , when his brigade was transferred to the Department ' s First Geographical Division until February 1862 . His brigade was then briefly added to John P . McCown ' s division in the Department until it joined the Army of Mississippi on April 1 . Stewart ' s brigade was added to the Army of Mississippi ' s First Corps , under the command of Maj . Gen . Leonidas Polk . The Army of Mississippi became the Army of Tennessee near the end of 1862 , and Stewart and his brigade continued to serve in the First Corps of that army as well . He was promoted to divisional command and to major general on June 2 , 1863 , and he participated in the Tullahoma Campaign that summer . He was in action at the Battle of Chickamauga that September , and was wounded in the fight on September 19 . Stewart fought in the Atlanta Campaign in 1864 , and replaced Polk in command of the Army ' s Third Corps when Polk was killed in action at the Battle of Marietta in June . He was appointed temporary Lieutenant General on June 23 , 1864 , and led the Third Corps at the Battle of Ezra Church , where he was wounded in the forehead on July 28 . Stewart continued to lead the Third Corps during the Franklin - Nashville Campaign in the fall of 1864 , participating in the Second Battle of Franklin that November and the Battle of Nashville in December . Stewart ' s corps fared badly on the first day of the Battle of Nashville , and it broke on the second day when the troops to its left were forced from their position . What was left of the Army of Tennessee was sent east and fought in the Carolinas Campaign in 1865 , once again under the command of Gen . Joseph E . Johnston , who placed the Army of Tennessee ( by this time fewer than 5 , 000 men ) under the command of Lt . Gen . Alexander P . Stewart . The Army was surrendered on April 26 and Stewart was paroled at Greensboro , North Carolina on May 1 . Postbellum career . After the war , Stewart moved to Missouri in 1869 and became an insurance executive . He then moved to Mississippi in 1874 , where he served as the Chancellor of the University of Mississippi until 1886 . From 1890 to 1908 , he was the commissioner of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park . He was injured when he was hit by a train on March 30 , 1893 , and he returned to Missouri in 1906 . By 1905 , Stewart was described as " of advanced years , but clear of intellect " and " deeply interested . . . for several years " in the teachings of the " Watch Tower " ; that magazine reported Stewart ' s baptism following a talk by Charles Taze Russell . Russell delivered the funeral sermon in St . Louis following Stewart ' s death in Biloxi , Mississippi in 1908 . Stewart is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery , St . Louis , Missouri .