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The FReeper Foxhole Reviews "The Myth of the 5 Dead Rebel Generals" - October 30th, 2004
see educational sources

Posted on 10/30/2004 12:06:05 AM PDT by snippy_about_it



Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.



...................................................................................... ...........................................

U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues

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The Myth of the 5 Dead Rebel Generals




They were killed at Franklin, all right, but it's not true that all five were laid out on the same porch.
by Col. Campbell H. Brown


General John B. Hood on November 30, 1864, launched one of his typically ill-considered attacks on the Federal entrenched position at Franklin, Tennessee. Stanley Horn writes: "...in the last two hours of the day... the combat was waged with a maniacal desperation witnessed on no other field of the war." The Confederates suffered a staggering loss--four times as great as that of Pickett at Gettysburg. In no other battle were so many general officers put out of action: for the Confederates, twelve, of whom five were killed outright and one mortally wounded.

Historians have claimed that after the battle the bodies of Major General Patrick R. Cleburne and Brigadier Generals John Adams, states Rights Gist, Hiram B. Granbury, and Otho F. Strahl were brought in from the bloody field and laid out side by side on the small porch of "Carnton," ancestral McGavock home.


Major General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne


John R. Peacock of High Point, North Carolina, by sound reasoning and the use of a hitherto unpublished source, now concludes that this widely accepted story is not altogether correct. It is true that there were five bodies on Mrs. John McGavock's porch, and three of them were generals: Cleburne, Granbury, and Strahl. The others were Colonel R. B. Young, General Granbury's chief of staff, and Lieutenant John H. Marsh, aide to General Strahl. The five bodies were removed, probably on 1 or 2 December, to Columbia and a day later were interred in Rose Hill Cemetery.


Brigadier General John Adams


Major General Lucius J. Polk, former adjutant general of Tennessee, was outraged when he heard that the five heroes had been buried in that portion of the cemetery set aside as a potters' field for the interment of criminals and indigents. With the aid of Chaplain Charles t. Quintard he had the five officers disinterred and moved to the cemetery of St. John's Church near his home at Ashwood. Later three were again moved to cemeteries at their homes; but the bodies of Young and Marsh still rest at St. John's. Brigadier General Arthur H. Manigault, also a casualty of Franklin, was likewise carried to Polk's home, Hamilton Place, but he survived.


Brigadier General States Rights Gist


Brigadier General John Adams, a native of Nashville, had married a girl at Pulaski. Consequently when he fell at Franklin the sorrowing members of his brigade took him in a wagon to Pulaski, where he was buried on December 1. As Mr. Peacock points out, there was scarcely time for a stopover on McGavock's porch en route. Thomas R. Markham, chaplain of Featherston's brigade, averred, however, that Adams, who was killed at the moment of crossing the Federal barricade, was picked up in an ambulance and taken to the McGavock home.


Brigadier General Hiram B. Granbury


Wiley Howard, body servant to General Gist, gave an account to a biographer of the Gist family in which he says that he searched the field for the body of the general, who he had been told had fallen. He found Gist, who had died at 8:30 p.m. at the brigade field hospital, which had been set up near the home of Judge White (still standing at 724 Fair Street in Franklin). With the help of the brigade surgeon he secured a cedar box as a coffin, which he loaded into an ambulance. He drove to Mrs. White's front door and begged permission to bury the general in the White family cemetery. Mrs. White had the body brought into her parlor, and summoned a minister who held a funeral attended by officers and men from Georgia and South Carolina troops of Gist's brigade. The remains were then buried in the family cemetery. As the army passed back through Franklin after its defeat at Nashville, Wiley or some member of Gist's staff disinterred the body and shipped it to Columbia, South Carolina, where it was buried under a big cedar tree (which I remember) in the family plot in Trinity Churchyard, near the State House.


Brigadier General Otho F. Strahl


Thus, although in war the bodies of the fallen usually receive only temporary field burial and for various reasons become "unknown" dead, in this case the dead generals did receive proper care, and their resting places are known today.






FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links




TOPICS: VetsCoR
KEYWORDS: civilwar; csa; franklintn; freeperfoxhole; history; samsdayoff; veterans; wbts
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To: bentfeather

I'll have to send those noises to the hobbit lass. :^)


121 posted on 10/31/2004 5:04:59 AM PST by Samwise (Proud to be a Security Mom married to a NASCAR Dad)
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To: secret garden
Give me a couple of cross streets and I'll let you know.

No can do, secret. I was only 7 when we moved.

122 posted on 10/31/2004 8:52:58 AM PST by CholeraJoe (I'm just three lost teeth and a neck tattoo away from being a Soccer Hooligan. Go Gunners!)
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To: snippy_about_it
Good afternoon CJ, how's the dating world treating you?

It's a jungle out there. Gold diggers and thrill seekers abound.

123 posted on 10/31/2004 8:57:05 AM PST by CholeraJoe (I'm just three lost teeth and a neck tattoo away from being a Soccer Hooligan. Go Gunners!)
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To: CholeraJoe
Gold diggers and thrill seekers abound...

LOL. You'll find your way. :-)

124 posted on 10/31/2004 9:23:57 AM PST by snippy_about_it (Fall in --> The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul.)
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To: snippy_about_it
GM, snippy, et.al

it's NICE to see that our HERO-MARTYRS are REMEMBERED on the foxhole!

free dixie/hugs, duckie/sw

125 posted on 10/31/2004 10:35:19 AM PST by stand watie ( being a damnyankee is no better than being a racist. it is a LEARNED prejudice against dixie.)
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To: SAMWolf
YEP!

WE do!

free dixie,sw

126 posted on 10/31/2004 10:35:54 AM PST by stand watie ( being a damnyankee is no better than being a racist. it is a LEARNED prejudice against dixie.)
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To: bentfeather
HI miss feather!

free dixie/hugs, duckie/sw

127 posted on 10/31/2004 10:36:44 AM PST by stand watie ( being a damnyankee is no better than being a racist. it is a LEARNED prejudice against dixie.)
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