Henry Gray ( general ) Henry Gray , Jr . ( January 19 , 1816 – December 11 , 1892 ) was an American lawyer and politician who served in the state legislatures of Mississippi and then Louisiana . During the American Civil War , he was a general in the Confederate Army and subsequently served in the Confederate States Congress . Early life and career . Gray was born to a military family in the Laurens District of South Carolina . He was a son of Henry Gray ( a captain in the United States Army during the War of 1812 ) and Elvira Flanagan Gray . His grandfather Fredrick Gray had been a captain in the American Revolutionary War . He graduated from South Carolina College in 1834 , and was admitted to the bar in 1838 . He then settled in Winston County , Mississippi , where he married Eleanora Ann Howard in 1841 , and was the local district attorney from 1839 until 1845 . In 1846 Gray was elected to the Mississippi Legislature and served one term . In 1850 he ran unsuccessfully for the U . S . Congress as a Whig . In December 1850 , he bought of land in Bienville Parish , Louisiana , in the community of Brushy Valley . In the campaign of 1856 he was an elector for the Democratic ticket and canvassed the state with his friend Judah P . Benjamin . He was elected to the State Legislature in 1860 and later that year lost a close race for senator to Benjamin . Civil War . At the beginning of the Civil War , Gray enlisted as a private in a Mississippi infantry regiment in January 1861 , until his friend Jefferson Davis called him to go back to Louisiana to raise a regiment . In April and early May 1862 , Gray organized the 28th Louisiana Infantry at Camp Taylor and was elected as its colonel . He and his men were mustered into the Confederate Army on May 2 . On April 14 , 1863 Gray was wounded in the fighting near Bayou Teche , Louisiana . Department commander Edmund Kirby Smith ordered his promotion to brigadier general on April 8 , however the Confederate Congress disallowed it . Gray was given brigade command in Polignac ' s Division in April . Gray saw action around Vicksburg and in various battles within Louisiana while leading his brigade . He assumed the command of a division during the Battle of Mansfield on April 28 , 1864 , following the mortal wounding of Alfred Mouton . Gray was elected to represent his northwestern Louisiana congressional district to the Second Confederate Congress , a position he had not sought nor had any knowledge of until notified of his election . He subsequently left the army in camp at Camden , Arkansas , and traveled to Richmond , Virginia . He was promoted to brigadier general on March 17 , 1865 , backdated to the Mansfield fight , and Gray rejoined his brigade in Polignac ' s Division until the end of the war . There is no record of his being paroled from the U . S . Government . Postbellum activities . After the war he was a member of Louisiana State Senate . He spent most of the rest of his life trying to re - establish his finances . His only son had died in 1864 , and his wife died a few years later . At the age of 76 , Gray died at his daughter ' s house near Coushatta , Louisiana , and was buried nearby in Springville Cemetery . The Brig . Gen . Henry Gray Chapter # 218 of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars in Shreveport , Louisiana , is named in his honor .