Showing posts with label 1st TN INF CSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1st TN INF CSA. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Dr. James Brickell Murfree

DR. JAMES BRICKELL MURFREE. One of the most prominent physicians of Middle Tennessee, who died at Murfreesboro Wednesday night, April 24th, 1912. Dr. Murfree was born in Murfreesboro Sept. 16, 1835. His father was Mathias B. Murfree, a farmer and a son of Col. Hardy Murfree, for whom Murfreesboro was named. Col. Hardy Murfree was a native of North Carolina and a soldier in the Revolutionary War. Mary Ann (Roberts) Murfree, mother of Dr. Murfree, was a native of North Carolina.

James B. Murfree was educated in Union University, at Murfreesboro, from which institution he received the degree of A. M. He attended one course of lectures in the medical department of the University of Nashville and went to Philadelphia and entered the Jefferson Medical College. There he received his degree as M. D., in March, 1859. He practiced in Murfreesboro until the breaking out of the Civil War, in 1861, when he enlisted in Company I, First Tennessee regiment, from which company he was detailed as medical officer to care for the sick. He was appointed assistant surgeon by the State of Tennessee. On June 9, [1861], he was commissioned assistant surgeon in the Confederate Army, which position he continued to hold until July 6, 1862, when he was appointed surgeon, and was retained in that position to the close of the war.

After the war he returned to Murfreesboro, where he practiced alone for two years, was in partnership with Dr. L. W. Knight during 1868, then associated with Dr. H. H. Clayton, from 1869 to 1878, and since then had practiced alone. In 1898 he took a post-graduate course in general surgery in the New York Polyclinic Institute. He was a member of the Rutherford County Medical Society, ex-President of the Middle Tennessee Medical Association, ex-President of the Tennessee Medical Society, and ex-President of the Tri-State Medical Society, the last named embracing Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee; was a member of the Southern Surgical Gynecological Association; a member of the American Medical Association, a contributor to the medical journals, was professor of surgery in the medical department of the University of the South, at Sewanee, which position he held from 1895 until shortly before his last illness began.

He was local surgeon for the N. C. & St. L. Railway, medical examiner for the New York, the Aetna, the Washington, the Mutual Life of New York, and several other old line life insurance companies. He was a member of the Democratic party. He was a member of and an elder in the Presbyterian Church; belonged to Mt. Moriah Lodge of Masons, Pythagoras Chapter No. 150, Murfreesboro Commandery No. 10, Knights Templar, thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Consistory at Nashville.

He was married Jan. 14, 1862, to Ada Juliet Talley, of Readyville, Tenn., who survives him with the following children: Hardy, Jane Ready, wife of W. J. Nance; Ada Morrow, wife of C. B. Huggins; Fannie Hancock, wife of T. V. Ordway; Libbie Morrow and Mary Robert Murfree and Dr. M. B. Murfree.

In honor of his capable and faithful services for over half a century in the town in which he was born, lived and died, all the business houses closed their doors on the day of his burial. Universally loved and esteemed by his family, the community in which he lived, and by the whole medical profession in the State, he justly earned a most enviable reputation by the faithful discharge of every duty.

SOURCE: Deering J. Roberts, Southern Practitioner, Volume 34, p. 253-5

Friday, December 29, 2017

Samuel Rush Watkins

Samuel R. Watkins. member of Leonidas Polk Bivouac, No. 3, and W. H. Trousdale Camp, No. 495, died in the old parsonage near Zion Church, Maury County, Tenn., on July 20, 1901. He was devoted to the association of Confederate soldiers and to his comrades. He was born in Maury County, Tenn., in 1839, and in April, 1861, enlisted as private in Company H., First Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. He was three times wounded, and was paroled April 26, 1865.

In 1882 he published "Company Aytch” (H), of the First Tennessee Regiment, which he dedicated to the living and departed members of the Maury County Grays of that regiment.

SOURCE: Confederate Veteran, Volume 9, Number 9, September 1901, p. 419

Saturday, June 24, 2017

Robert Bogardus Snowden


ROBERT BOGARDUS SNOWDEN, financier, Memphis, Tenn., son of John Bayard Snowden, one of the early settlers and the leading dry goods merchant of Nashville, was born in New York city, May 24, 1836, at the home of his grandfather, Gen. Robert Bogardus. He is a descendant of Everardus Bogardus, the Dominie, who married Anneke Jans, and, through his grandmother, Susan Bayard Breese, is of the kin of Judge Sidney Breese, of Illinois Admiral Breese of the Navy, and Samuel Finley Breese Morse, inventor of the telegraph. The subject of this sketch graduated from a Western military institute in 1855, and engaged in the wholesale grocery business in New Orleans with the firm of Dyas & Co. In 1856, he joined the local vigilance committee, and took part in the scrimmage with the “thugs” at Jackson square. In 1858, Mr. Snowden went into business in Nashville, under the name of R. B. Snowden & Co., and, in 1861, was commissioned Adjutant of the 1st Tenn. Vols., and served with distinction until the end of the Civil War. After service in Virginia, he went through the Kentucky campaign as Adjutant General on Gen. Bushrod R. Johnson's staff, and, in the battle of Murfreesboro, Tenn., won promotion to the command of the 25th Tenn., as Lieutenant Colonel, by desperate, gallant and persistent fighting, this being followed with promotion to the rank of Colonel and being one of the few occasions in which a staff officer was advanced over officers of the line. After further active and gallant services in Tennessee and Virginia, during which he often commanded his brigade, Colonel Snowden was surrendered with Lee at Appomattox. After the War, he engaged in business in New York city as an importer, under the style of Snowden & Riva. In 1870, he removed to Memphis, and has since been occupied with land, real estate, banking, turnpike, insurance, street railroad and other enterprises. He is president of The George Peabody Real Estate & Improvement Co. Colonel Snowden commanded the Interstate encampment in Memphis in May, 1895, and was made a Major General of militia. In 1868, he married Miss Annie Overton, daughter of Robert C. Brinkley and granddaughter of John Overton, the original proprietor and founder of Memphis.

SOURCE: Henry Hall, Editor, America's Successful Men of Affairs: The United States at Large, Volume 2, p. 736-7

Monday, June 22, 2015

Review: Co. "Aytch" - The Complete Illustrated Edition


By Sam Watkins

Even before it was prominently featured in Ken Burns’ award winning documentary, The Civil War, Sam Watkins’ memoir Co. “Aytch” The First Tennessee Regiment or a Side show to the Big Show, was a classic of Civil War literature, and widely heralded my many historians as one of the best memoirs of the war written by a common soldier.

At the outset to the Civil War Watkins was one of 120 men who enlisted in Company H of the 1st Tennessee Infantry.  He and his comrades were in virtually every major battle of the war in its Western theater.  By the time the war ended in April 1865, Watkins was one of seven members of the company who were still alive when General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the Army of Tennessee to Major-General William Tecumseh Sherman.

Soon after his return home Sam Watkins began to write his memoir.  His engaging narrative captures the pageantry and monotony, the glory and misery, the humor and drama, the pride and horror experienced by a common soldier of the Confederate in the Western Theater.

Zenith Press has pulled Watkins’ dusty and well worn volume from the shelf and republished it in a new and glorious illustrated edition.  Every word of Sam Watkins’ text has been preserved and supplemented with 175 color photographs, illustrations and maps.  Period photographs and illustrations of politicians and military men, places and landmarks, camp life and battle scenes take their place beside post-war artworks, modern photographs of artifacts, battlefields, monuments, and reenactments which have been gathered from the Library of Congress, the George Eastman House, the National Parks Service, the National War College, as well as many other of this country’s major Civil War collections.

Supplementary text is added from the Civil War generals such as James Longstreet and William T. Sherman as well as modern Pulitzer Prize winning historians Doris Kearns Goodwin, James M. McPherson, Allan Nevins and Bruce Catton.

Zenith Press’ Co. "Aytch": The First Tennessee Regiment or a Side Show to the Big Show: The Complete Illustrated Edition breathes new life to Watkins’ memoir for its 21st Century readers.  It would be a welcome addition to any Civil War student’s library, even if he already owns an earlier, and I’m sure dog-eared and well read, edition.

ISBN 978-0760347751, Zenith Press, © 2015, Hardcover, 9.5 x 10.5 x 1 inches  256 glossy pages, Maps, Photographs & Illustrations, Index. $35.00.  To purchase a copy of this book click HERE.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

The Rev. Dr. Quintard . . .

. . . Chaplain of the First Tennessee regiment, will preach in the Episcopal church on Sunday morning next.

– Published in The Daily Rebel, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Saturday, August 9, 1862, p. 2

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Dr. C. T. Quintard

Dr. C. T. Quintard was our chaplain for the First Tennessee Regiment during the whole war, and he stuck to us from the beginning even unto the end. During week days he ministered to us physically, and on Sundays spiritually. He was one of the purest and best men I ever knew. He would march and carry his knapsack every day the same as any soldier. He had one text he preached from which I remember now. It was "the flying scroll." He said there was a flying scroll continually passing over our heads, which was like the reflections in a looking-glass, and all of our deeds, both good and bad, were written upon it. He was a good doctor of medicine, as well as a good doctor of divinity, and above either of these, he was a good man per se. Every old soldier of the First Tennessee Regiment will remember Dr. C. T. Quintard with the kindest and most sincere emotions of love and respect. He would go off into the country and get up for our regiment clothing and provisions, and wrote a little prayer and song book, which he had published, and gave it to the soldiers. I learned that little prayer and song book off by heart, and have a copy of it in my possession yet, which I would not part with for any consideration. Dr. Quintard's nature was one of love. He loved the soldiers, and the soldiers loved him, and deep down in his heart of hearts was a deep and lasting love for Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, implanted there by God the Father Himself.

Sam R. Watkins, "Co. Aytch": Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment, Second Edition, 1900, p. 112-3

Rev. Dr. Quintard

We had the pleasure of meeting this estimable gentleman in our city yesterday.  We understand that he has resigned his position on the staff of Gen. Loring, now in Virginia, and returned to Tennessee for the purpose of resuming his former relation to the 1st regiment of Tennessee volunteers.  His return will be the occasion of general rejoicing among our gallant Tennessee troops.  No man has been more self-sacrificing in his efforts to be useful, and no one is more universally beloved in this portion of the army with which he has been connected.  The services of such an man are invaluable to the country.

– Published in The Daily Rebel, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Saturday, August 9, 1862, p. 2