Reuben Walker Carswell Reuben Walker Carswell ( September 29 , 1837 – January 11 , 1889 ) was a lawyer , member of the Georgia State Legislature , Confederate States Army lieutenant colonel and brigadier general in the Georgia militia during the American Civil War , and , after the war , a lawyer and judge . Early life . Reuben W . Carswell was born at " Middle Ground " Plantation near Louisville , Georgia on September 29 , 1837 . His parents were Edward Rhodes Carswell , a State Reprentative in the Georgia General Assembly , and Mary Celesta ( Walker ) Carswell . Carswell was educated in his home county , Jefferson County , Georgia and at Emory University from which he graduated in the class of 1856 . He then studied law under future Confederate Major General ( temporary ) Ambrose R . Wright . After being admitted to the bar , he practiced law with his cousin , William Carswell . Reuben Carswell served as a Georgia state representative in 1858 – 1860 . In 1861 , Carswell married a daughter of James Walker . They had four children : Edgar R . , Reuben W . , Margaret and Isabel . American Civil War service . Reuben W . Carswell started his Civil War service on June 14 , 1861 as a second lieutenant in the 20th Georgia Infantry Regiment . He was appointed captain in the 48th Georgia Infantry Regiment in March 1862 . On March 22 , 1862 , Carswell was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the 48th Georgia Infantry . The 48th Georgia Infantry Regiment was in a brigade commanded by then Brigadier General Ambrose Wright , Carswell ' s mentor as a lawyer . Carswell performed with distinction during the Seven Days Battles and at the Battle of Chancellorsville . After being elected a state representative to the Georgia State Legislature in 1863 , Carswell returned to Georgia to serve in that office . As the Union Army under Major General William T . Sherman began to advance in Georgia in May 1864 , Georgia Governor Joseph E . Brown appointed Carswell a brigadier general in the Georgia militia . Carswell led the 1st Brigade of the Georgia militia in opposition to the Union Army under Sherman during the Atlanta Campaign and Sherman ' s March to the Sea . The brigade fought at the Battle of Ruff ' s Station , now Smyrna , Georgia on July 4 , 1864 , the Battle of Atlanta on July 22 , 1864 and during the subsequent siege of Atlanta until the fall of the city on September 2 , 1864 . Governor Brown furloughed the militia for 30 days so the men could harvest their crops . The men returned in October and skirmished with Sherman ' s men along their march to Savannah , Georgia . Carswell ' s brigade set out early from Macon , Georgia and missed the Battle of Griswoldville in which Sherman ' s forces decimated the other brigades of Georgia militia that attacked a Union brigade at Griswoldville , near Macon . Carswell commanded his brigade at Savannah in December 1864 until the city fell to the Union force . As Sherman took his men to South Carolina , the Georgia militia remained in its home state . Carswell surrendered to the Union Army on May 20 , 1865 at Augusta , Georgia . He was paroled as a brigadier general of Georgia militia . Later life . Carswell returned to his law practice after the war . He was elected judge of the Superior Courts of the Middle Circuit of Georgia in 1880 . Ill health forced him to resign six years later . Reuben Walker Carswell died at his home in Louisville , Georgia on January 11 , 1889 . He is buried at New Cemetery in Louisville , Georgia . On July 13 , 1933 , Mrs . Belle Stokes Carswell Hudson applied for a Confederate widow ' s pension from the State of Florida as the widow of Reuben Walker Carswell , having married him in February 1881 . The application also states that the applicant remarried in January 1889 , after Carswell died , although in the same month that he died , and that she had lived in Florida since 1923 .