James Hagan ( Confederate colonel ) James Hagan ( June 17 , 1822 – November 6 , 1901 ) was a United States Army captain during the Mexican - American War and a Confederate States Army colonel during the American Civil War ( Civil War ) . He was a prosperous businessman and planter at Mobile , Alabama between the wars . Although he commanded a brigade during most of 1863 and from August 1864 until the end of the war , he was never appointed a brigadier general by Confederate President Jefferson Davis or confirmed as a general officer by the Confederate Senate . Early life . James Hagan was born in County Tyrone , Ireland on June 17 , 1822 . His family moved to a farm near Philadelphia , Pennsylvania when he was still at an early age . He was educated at Clermont Academy in Philadelphia . He moved to Alabama in 1837 . His prosperous uncle , John Hagen of New Orleans , Louisiana , took him into the family business and set him up in Mobile , Alabama to manage the Hagan business there . Hagan served in Hays ' s Texas Rangers , a cavalry unit in Major General Zachary Taylor ' s army during the Mexican - American War . Hagan was recognized for his gallantry at the Battle of Monterrey . He was commissioned a captain in the 3rd U . S . Dragoons in 1848 . He was discharged on July 31 , 1848 . After the war , he returned to Mobile where he bought and subsequently managed a plantation instead of remaining in the family mercantile business . In 1854 , Hagan married Bettie Oliver , daughter of Alabama ' s attorney general . American Civil War service . At the beginning of the Civil War , James Hagan organized and was elected captain of a cavalry company for the Alabama Militia , the " Mobile Dragoons , " which served on guard duty along the Gulf Coast . He transferred as Major ( United States ) to the 1st Mississippi Cavalry Regiment on October 26 , 1861 . The regiment fought at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6 – 7 , 1862 . Hagan led his men in a mounted charge at the Battle of Perryville which was highly commended by his brigade commander , Brigadier General Joseph Wheeler . Hagan was promoted to colonel of a new regiment , the 3rd Alabama Cavalry Regiment , on July 1 , 1862 . The regiment fought in all of the campaigns of the Army of Tennessee . In July 1863 , Hagan was assigned to command Brigade 1 of Brigadier General William T . Martin ' s Division of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of Tennessee , which was Major General Joseph Wheeler ' s old brigade . During the spring and summer of 1863 , the brigade screened the left front of General Braxton Bragg ' s army . Wheeler recommended that Hagan be promoted to brigadier general but Bragg blocked the promotion because he said Hagan was in a state of " dissipation " , a reference to drunkenness or alcoholism . Hagan had been wounded near Franklin , Tennessee in the winter of 1862 and again near Kingston , Tennessee in November 1863 . In November 1863 , he resigned and returned to Mobile to recover from his wounds and his disappointment from not being promoted . After he had recuperated , Hagan asked that his resignation be revoked . The resignation was revoked and he returned to his regiment for the Atlanta campaign , where the regiment fought as infantry in the trenches . When Brigadier General William Wirt Adams was promoted to command of the Division , Hagan was assigned to permanent command of the brigade , consisting of 5 regiments and 1 battalion of Alabama cavalry . Hagan ' s brigade was part of Wheeler ' s force which opposed Major General William T . Sherman ' s March to the Sea and Carolinas Campaign . Hagan was wounded again at the Battle of Monroe ' s Crossroads , near Kinston , North Carolina on March 10 , 1865 and again at Fayetteville , North Carolina the next day . Although Hagan was assigned as acting brigadier general in early 1865 , he never received an official appointment from Jefferson Davis or confirmation by the Confederate Senate of an appointment as a general officer . Major General Wheeler later wrote that he had been told unofficially by Confederate States War Department officials that brigadier general commissions had been issued for Hagan , Henry Marshall Ashby and Moses Wright Hannon near the end of the war , but no such commissions ever were delivered . Aftermath . Hagan returned to Mobile after the war but he was penniless since his fortune had been converted to Confederate money . He worked as manager of a plantation on the Alabama River in the 1870s and early 1880s . President Grover Cleveland appointed him crier of the United States District Court in Alabama in 1885 . James Hagan died on November 6 , 1901 at Mobile , Alabama . He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile .