James Cantey, One of Those Confederate Generals Born in Kershaw County, S.C.

From Wikipedia.

In the last post I listed the names of six Confederate generals born in Kershaw County, S.C..  One of them was James Kershaw (so I wonder if he had something to do with the county's founding).  I was familiar with James Chesnut, Jr., but only because of his wife Mary's diary from the war.

I was not familiar at all with the other four.

Here's one of them.

JAMES CANTEY (December 30, 1818 - June 30, 1874)

He served as an officer in the Palmetto Regiment during the Mexican War.  In one battle he was severely wounded and left among the dead until his enslaved servant retrieved the body to be buried at home and found him still alive.  He saved James' life.  James offered him his freedom for that, but was refused.

After the war, he moved to  Alabama and bought land, becoming a  planter in Russell County.

--Old Secesh

The Kentucky Campaign, 1862-- Part 2: The Battle of Perryville

4.   A severe drought in the region drew both armies to Perryville.

5.  The Union Army greatly outnumbered the Confederates but only one corps was significantly involved in the battle.

6.  Famous Confederate diarist Sam Watkins declared that Perryville was the "hardest fighting" he  experienced during the war.

"I was in every battle,skirmish and march that was made by the First Tennessee Regiment during that war, and I do not remember of a harder contest and more evenly fought than that of Perryville."

7.  Small quantities of Henry repeating rifles were used at Perryville, probably the first time they were used in combat.  The Henry rifle was the predecessor  of the more famous Winchester lever action rifles.

--Old Secesh

That Civil War Reading Thing-- Part 2: "Would Become As Rusty As A Boy's Jack Knife"

**  "You see I must read something, or my mind would become as rusty as a boy's jack knife that has been lost in a rubbish pile for a year or two, and in the absence of anything better I devour every novel I get hold of."

Major Thomas A. Connolly, 123rd Illinois Infantry, explaining why he had read "David Copperfield" and "The Confessions of Con Cregan," in a letter to his wife, February 14, 1864.

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**  "I wish I had some books.  The best I can do now is to repeat over and over such pieces of poetry as I have committed to memory."

Charles B. Hayden, 2nd Michigan Infantry, in his diary, June 21, 1861.

Read Them Books.  --Secesh

Long-Lost Civil War Diary Returned to Tennessee-- Part 2

Randal McGavock was a Harvard educated lawyer who served one term as the mayor of Nashville in 1858 when he was 32.  He had earlier taken a 20-month European tour and wrote a book about titled "A Tennesseean Abroad."

He was Lt.-Col. of the 10th Tennessee Infantry regiment and killed in 1863 at the Battle of Raymond in Mississippi.

Ms. Sheam contacted the Tennessee State Library and Archives which had received 8 volumes of his diaries in 1960,.but was missing the one from his early Civil War years.  She and her husband flew to Nashville to donate the diary to the archives and visit historic sites associated with McGavock and his prominent family, including the Two River Mansion in Nashville and Carnton Plantation in Franklin.

--Old Secesh

Long-Lost Civil War Diary Returned in Tennessee-- Part 1

From the August 23, 2014, Tri-Cities.com, AP.

Randal McGavock, one-time mayor of Nashville, wrote a diary during the war and it has been returned now after 152 years.  It was found by a Union captain when they captured Fort Henry in 1862.

It was found in Cincinnati by retired teacher Andrea Sheam while helping her parents move into an assisted living facility.  Her parents told her that her grandmother had placed it in a wooden box in 1963.

The inscription on the diary said that it was captured by Captain Myndert Wemple of the 4th Illinois Volunteer cavalry on February 6, 1862.  Sheam's research show that Wemple was an ancestor and the diary was passed down through the generations for the next hundred years before it was forgotten.

A Piece of History Recovered.  --Old Secesh