Part 17

Rejoining the First Georgia Regulars, he became its adjutant and went with the command to Virginia. He participated in the earliest fighting of the war, was with his regiment at the affair at Langley's farm, and in other brushes with the enemy. In the winter of '61 and '62 he was commissioned the colonel of the Fifth Georgia Regiment of State Troops and was assigned to the protection of the coast of the state for six months, when the regiment was reorganized for regular service in the Confederate army, with the retention of Colonel Harrison as its commander, his command now becoming the Thirty-second Regiment of Georgia Infantry. The regiment was assigned to service at Charleston, where it remained until near the close of the struggle. Though still ranking as colonel, Harrison was in command of a brigade about fifteen months during the years '63-'64. The three brigade commanders, Generals Hagood, Colquitt and Colonel Harrison, commanded, by turn, on Morris Island, during the large part of the siege of Charleston. When the assault was made on Fort Wagner on July 22, 1863, Colonel Harrison was speedily sent to reinforce the garrison, and arrived in the nick of time, saved the fort and put to flight the assailants. In a contest of several days on John's Island he was in complete command of the Confederate forces, and here he won distinction by his coolness, courage, and strategic ability. After the final fall of Wagner, Colonel Harrison was assigned to a separate command, with headquarters at Mount Pleasant, a part of his command still garrisoning Fort Sumter, over which the Confederate colors floated till February, 1865.

During a period of 1864, Colonel Harrison was in command at Florence, S. C., where he built a stockade for twenty-five thousand federal prisoners, who were so humanely cared for by the young commander, as to excite the attention of General Sherman, who, when he captured Savannah, ascertained where the Harrison home was, as the family was now residing in that city, and issued a general order to his troops respecting its special protection.

In 1864 the brigade which Colonel Harrison commanded was sent, together with that of General Colquitt's, to turn back the invasion of the federal General Seymour, in Florida, the object of Seymour being to isolate Florida from the rest of the Confederacy. Colonel Harrison shared in the honors won by General Colquitt in the decisive battle at Olustee, and was at once commissioned a brigadier, being, it is said, the youngest general in the army. He was not quite twenty-three years old when he received his commission as a brigadier general. His brigade became a part of Walthall's division, Stewart's corps.

On the retirement of the Confederates before Sherman into the Carolinas, the task was assigned to General Harrison of covering the retreat of Hardee. General Harrison shared in the closing scenes of the drama in the Carolinas, was twice wounded, and once had a horse killed under him. He had just passed his twenty-fourth birthday when his command surrendered at Greensboro, N. C.

While in camp General Harrison applied himself to the study of the law as his prospective profession, to the practice of which he was admitted soon after the close of hostilities. Removing to Alabama, he located first at Auburn, and later removed to Opelika, where he has since resided. Elected commandant at the Alabama University, he accepted, after first declining the position, after retiring from which he was made commandant at the state agricultural college, as it was then called, at Auburn. After a year of service there he abandoned all else and devoted himself to his practice.

His service for the public was soon in demand, and in 1875 he was chosen a member of the constitutional convention of Alabama, serving in the same capacity, in his adopted state, in which his honored father was serving at the same time in Georgia. Then followed his election to the state senate, in 1880, he becoming the president of that body in '82, serving two years. In '92 he was chosen a delegate to the national Democratic convention, and in '94 was chosen to fill the unexpired term in congress of the Honorable W. C. Oates, who had become governor, the district indicating at the same time his choice to succeed himself two years later.

As a distinguished Mason, General Harrison is the chairman of the committee on Masonic jurisprudence of the grand lodge of Alabama. The United Confederate Veterans have shown their appreciation of General Harrison by choosing him in twelve successive elections as major general of the Alabama division. In 1912 he was chosen, at Macon, Ga., lieutenant general of the army of Tennessee department, which position he now holds. A man now of seventy-two, he resides at Opelika, as the chief counsel of the Western of Alabama Railroad.

CHARLES M. SHELLEY

For solid worth, substantial and enduring results, and patriotic service, no Alabamian enrolled among the worthies of the state excelled General Charles Miller Shelley. He was built for service, and was endowed with an energy practically boundless and unconquerable. Denied the boon of an education, excepting to a limited degree, he appropriated readily examples and suggestions, built them into practical force, which he wielded with apt execution as a soldier, citizen, and patriot. The statement of these qualities furnishes an outline of the character of this worthy citizen and brave soldier.

Seized by the enthusiasm which possessed so many of the Alabama youth when first the cloud of war flecked the national horizon, Mr. Shelley joined himself to a military company which went of its own will to Fort Morgan before the war had actually begun. The forts and ports along the seaboard of the South were supposed, at that time, to afford the first theater of the coming conflict. These volunteers eventually returned home, a more thorough organization was effected, and in the company formed at Talladega, Shelley became the captain. This company was one of the original Fifth Alabama Regiment, of which the brilliant Rodes was the first colonel.

For a period Captain Shelley served at Pensacola, till the regiment was ordered to Virginia. As a part of Ewell's brigade the regiment was in close proximity to Manassas Junction, and had a sharp brush with the enemy at Farr's Cross Road, but did not share in the first battle of Manassas.

At the close of the first term of service of enlistment, Captain Shelley resigned as captain, returned to Alabama and raised another regiment, of which he became the colonel. This was the Thirtieth Regiment of Alabama Volunteers, which regiment was assigned to duty in the western army, where it won great distinction for its fighting qualities. In the memorable campaign of 1862, in Tennessee and Kentucky, Colonel Shelley's regiment shared throughout. Subsequently the regiment was transferred to Mississippi and attached to Tracey's brigade, which saw hard service at Port Gibson. The first hard fight on the field in which the Thirtieth Alabama Regiment shared was at Baker's Creek, or Champion Hills, where Colonel Shelley received special mention at the hands of General Stephen D. Lee, the hero of that battle. Later still, the regiment was at Vicksburg and shared in the result of that ill-fated city.

In the series of conflicts in northern Georgia and in all the fighting between that region and Atlanta, and on to Jonesboro, the Thirtieth Alabama Regiment was conspicuous. At Jonesboro, Ga., Colonel Shelley was placed in command of a brigade, which position he held for a few weeks, when he was placed at the head of Cantey's brigade and given a commission as a brigadier. He was with Hood on the return march into Tennessee, and in the ill-starred battle of Franklin his brigade was a heavy sufferer, having lost six hundred and seventy men out of a total of eleven hundred whom he led into the fight. By an adroit movement at Franklin, General Shelley saved from capture the entire corps of General Stewart, for which skill and gallantry he received special mention at the hands of General Hood. It is a matter of record that but for the generalship shown by Shelley at Franklin, that battle would have been far more disastrous in its results. He came out of the fight with little more than four hundred men in his brigade, half of which number was captured at Nashville.

After these convulsions in Tennessee, contemporaneous with the onward march of Sherman to the sea, thence into North Carolina, where General Joseph E. Johnston was restored to his command, now a fragment of its former self, General Shelley was assigned to duty there. All the twelve Alabama regiments belonging to the army were thrown together into one brigade in North Carolina, and placed under the command of General Shelley. The surrender of Johnston's army resulted in the return of General Shelley to Selma as a paroled soldier.

In the resistance against the encroachments of a dominant force during the direful days of reconstruction, no man in Alabama rendered more patriotic service than Charles M. Shelley. At different times, during the succeeding years, General Shelley was made the campaign manager of the Democratic party in the state, contending often against subtle odds, and to his resourcefulness of leadership was the party largely indebted in its gradual emergence from the throes with which it was afflicted for years. During the closing years of his life General Shelley became one of the most noted leaders of the Democratic party in Alabama. During the first administration of Mr. Cleveland, he served by presidential appointment as the third auditor of the United States treasury. He was a candidate for the governorship in the campaign which resulted in the election of Hon. William J. Samford. General Shelley died in Birmingham on January 20, 1907.

In a brief review like this, scant justice to the worth of so eminent a man as General Shelley was, both as a soldier and a citizen, is given. Much of his service is hastily passed over, and if at all alluded to, it is in a most generalized manner. The salient facts of his eventful life are barely more than touched, but even from so short a recital of his services, certain unquestioned facts fix his fame.

General Shelley was an intrepid soldier whose pluck in the face of danger was unusual. So far as opportunity was afforded for the exercise of independent action in the tactics of war, he displayed rare qualities of skill as a commander. He met all exigencies without shrinking, and invariably bore his part with the heroism of the genuine soldier that he was. Nor was he less inclined to assume the obligations imposed in later struggles for Democratic supremacy in Alabama. Not a few who rose to political distinction in the state were indebted to the means afforded by the diligent work of General Shelley. The service rendered by him is a part of the state's history during the last half century. In certain instances where junctures arose, it is doubtful that any other could have met them with equal efficiency. No strained eulogism is needed to tell the story of his valiant service--the unvarnished facts are sufficient. Energy, diligence, resourcefulness, courage and a perennial optimism were the qualities displayed by General Shelley in the long service rendered by him to the state of Alabama.

HENRY D. CLAYTON

General Clayton served the state in a variety of capacities. In the legislature, he was one of its most alert and active members as chairman of one of the important committees; as a Confederate commander, he was courageous and skillful; as a circuit judge, he was ranked among the ablest in the state, and as president of the state university he rendered his last service with signal satisfaction.

He was educated at Emory and Henry College, from which institution he was graduated in 1848, and for distinguished scholarship bore away from the college the Robertson Prize Medal. He lost no time after the completion of his collegiate course, for a year later he was admitted to the bar, and entered at once on a successful and lucrative practice. The first eight years of his life were rigidly devoted to the law, and though recognized as one of the ablest of the young lawyers of the state, and one of the most popular, he could not be persuaded to enter on public life.

In 1857, however, he was chosen without opposition to be a representative to the legislature from Barbour County, and again in 1859 he was elected. Mr. Clayton was chairman of the committee on the military in 1861, when Governor Moore called for twelve months' volunteers to go to Pensacola, which was considered to be to the enemy a vulnerable point. At that time, Mr. Clayton was the colonel of the Third regiment of the Alabama volunteer corps, and in response to the appeal of Governor Moore, the services of this regiment were tendered. But as only two regiments were called for, Governor Moore's desire was that they should come from different parts of the state. However, two companies of Colonel Clayton's regiment were accepted and mustered into service.

Pressure was brought to bear on Colonel Clayton to remain in the legislature, but he positively declined to remain, and declared his purpose to enter the prospective army of the Confederacy. Finding that the governor would not accept the entire regiment of which he was the commander, he resigned his seat in the legislature and took his place in the ranks of one of the companies as a private. Thereupon the governor gave him a commission as aide-de-camp and sent him to Pensacola to receive the Alabama companies as they should arrive, and organize them into regiments. Colonel Clayton had the distinction of organizing the first regiment that was organized for the Confederate service. Of this regiment he was chosen the colonel. The regiment was composed of the pick of young Alabamians, not a few of whom, though already distinguished citizens, were serving in the ranks as privates. Among these may be named Hons. John Cochran, James L. Pugh and E. C. Bullock. Hailing from the same city were Colonel Clayton and these eminent citizens serving in the ranks as privates. It reflected as great honor on these privates, as it did on the young colonel, that while representing the same circle of society at home, in their respective relations as soldiers, the one a colonel and the others privates, there was exercised, on the other hand, the rigid discipline of the officer, and on the other, the prompt obedience of the soldier in the ranks.

Indeed, these prominent citizens were models of obedience to discipline, and sought to render such prompt service as would be exemplary to the men of lesser note in the ranks. They shared the fate of the commonest soldier in the ranks, whether it was with respect to guard duty, throwing up fortifications, or mounting cannon.

Months went past, and the theatre of war shifted to Virginia and Kentucky. While the brave Alabamians remained inactive at Pensacola, decisive battles were being fought in the regions already named. They chafed under enforced retirement, and on the expiration of the term of service of the regiment, Colonel Clayton was urged to reorganize it, but preferring the active service of the field to coast duty, he returned home, organized the Thirty-ninth Alabama regiment, and offered it to the Confederacy. Assigned to duty in the army under General Bragg, Colonel Clayton led his troops into the battle of Murfreesboro, where he received a wound. After a leave of thirty days, he returned to his command, though his wound was yet unhealed, and was surprised by the receipt of his commission as a brigadier general.

His command became noted in the western army for its fighting qualities, and "Clayton's Brigade" was the synonym of dash and courage in all the active campaigns of the western army, and in its long series of conflicts, this intrepid brigade was engaged. After the battle of New Hope Church, in which engagement General Clayton was again wounded, he was made a major general, which commission he held till the surrender of Johnston in North Carolina. In addition to the wound received at Murfreesboro, he was knocked from his horse by a grapeshot at Chickamauga, and at Jonesboro he had three horses either killed or disabled under him.

After his return home at the close of hostilities, General Clayton was elected judge of the eighth judicial circuit, in which position he served till his removal under the reconstruction regime. After that time, he devoted himself to law and to planting, in both of which he was successful.

After an unsuccessful candidacy for the governorship, General Clayton later became the president of the State University, in which capacity he served to the close of his life.

General Clayton was an excellent type of the old-time Southern gentleman. Free and cordial in intercourse with friends, hospitable, and jovial, he was deservedly one of the most popular citizens of the state, as well as one of the most prominent. He left a record cherished alike by the soldiers of his old command, by the students of the university, and by the people of a great state.

JAMES F. DOWDELL

During his career, Col. James F. Dowdell occupied a number of important and responsible positions. He became a citizen of Alabama at the age of twenty-eight, when he removed from Georgia to East Alabama and entered on the practice of law. His parents were Virginians, his mother being a remote relative of Henry Clay.

Colonel Dowdell was favored by superior conditions in the outset of life, being a graduate from Randolph-Macon College, which has long ranked as one of the best in the South. He was also favored by superior legal training, having studied law under Gen. Hugh Haralson, of LaGrange, Ga.

The gifts and acquirements of Colonel Dowdell were rather unusual. While thoroughly independent in thought, he was modest in his disposition. Unobtrusive, he was yet firm in moral steadiness. Drawn within the circle of enticement by reason of a varied public life, he maintained a character unsmirched, and was honored for his uncompromising preservation of virtue. In this respect, the tenor of his life was uniform. In public and in private, always, he was the same. Nothing fell from his lips that the most refined lady might not hear. Yet in intellectual combat on the hustings, or on the floor of congress, where mind clashed again mind, he was always an antagonist to be accounted with. While in the rush and onset of debate, he never failed to stop at the boundary of propriety. There was an instinctive halt and shrinkage in the presence of wrong. Nothing could betray him beyond.

On the entrance of Colonel Dowdell into public life, which was but a few years after his removal to the state, he was brought into sharp contact with several of the intellectual giants for which that period of the state's history was noted. Five years after becoming a citizen of Alabama, he offered for the legislature, and though defeated in his first canvass, he succeeded in so impressing the people with his forcefulness, that the following year he was chosen as an elector on the Pierce ticket. This afforded an opportunity for the deepening of the impression on the public, and a year later he was rewarded by his adopted district with a seat in the national congress. By a political move some time later, however, he was placed at a disadvantage. The congressional districts of the state having been reorganized in 1853, he was thrown into the district in which Montgomery was. But reliant on the public for a due recognition of his record, he did not hesitate to offer for re-election in opposition to Hon. Thomas H. Watts, a competitor of gigantic power, skilled in debate, and perfectly familiar with current questions. This was the period when know-nothingism was rampant, and as a political fad, novel and striking, gave to its adherents the advantage of the excitement which it produced. The contest with Mr. Watts was a notable one, the district was agitated as never before by the contesting aspirants, and Mr. Dowdell won by a narrow majority. He regarded this as one of the most decisive victories of his life.

Returning to congress for a second term in 1855, he was again opposed at the end of the next two years, in 1857, by Col. Thomas J. Judge, then in the prime of his intellectual vigor. Again, the greatest forces of Colonel Dowdell were summoned into exercise, again was conducted a notable campaign, and again Colonel Dowdell won. Never violent, and yet never shrinking from an onset in a contest, he had a manner of meeting it, which while it showed he was unafraid, he was thoroughly intent on doing right in each instance, and disdained to seize the slightest advantage, unless it was compatible with the code of right. This did not fail to challenge the attention of the crowds, and elicited not a little popular acclaim.

The reputation gained in two campaigns, the conditions of both of which made them unusually noteworthy, served to increase the grip of Colonel Dowdell at Washington, and profuse were the congratulations of his peers, when fresh from the combat, he returned to resume his duties at the national capital. At home he came to be regarded as invincible, in which opinion some of the lions of the state capital shared. These two contests fixed for all time his reputation in Alabama. The peculiar cast of his ability came to be recognized, he was honored for his sense of absolute fairness, and trusted for his integrity. He had opened the door of opportunity which no man could shut.

After having served in congress for three consecutive terms, Colonel Dowdell voluntarily withdrew, and retired to private life for somewhat more than a year. The rumblings of approaching war were already in the air, the result of which no thoughtful man of the time could for a moment doubt. War was inevitable. It was a time which called for all the ablest.

From his retirement, Colonel Dowdell was summoned to become a delegate to the secession convention of Alabama. The war followed, and Colonel Dowdell raised a regiment of volunteers, the Thirty-seventh Alabama, which regiment was assigned to duty in the west, under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnson. At Corinth, Colonel Dowdell was distinguished by coolness and courage at the head of his command. Some time later, his frail constitution gave way under the exposure and hardship of the camp and march, and he was forced to retire. Nor was this step voluntarily taken, because he declined to withdraw because of the detriment of the example, and for other reasons, and did so only under orders from a medical board. He was unable to re-enter the army, and addressed himself to his private affairs, aiding in every way possible in the promotion of the cause.

After the war, Colonel Dowdell became the president of the East Alabama College, at Auburn, then a school under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This school subsequently became the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, which it now is. In this new position, Colonel Dowdell served for a number of years with signal ability. While never a pastor, he was a preacher, and frequently served in the pulpit as a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Distinguished in all things that he assumed, or in all positions to which he was called, Colonel Dowdell was most distinguished for his incorruptible character and piety of life. He died in 1871, died as he had lived--a man of piety, an ornament to public life, in private life a fearless citizen, an honor to his church, and one of the first citizens of the state.

LAFAYETTE GUILD