If you ever wondered what happened to those local men who in the early days of the civil war had southern sympathies strong enough to go off and join the Confederate Army, then this article by Bernie Paul from the August 2008 edition of Marion Living Magazine will help. Bernie entitled the article “What Became of Marion’s Orphans”.
“At the start of the Civil War, a small group of Marion residents went south, across the Ohio River, and enlisted in the Confederate Army. Mustering at Union City, Tennessee, they became Company G of the 15th Tennessee Volunteer Regiment of Infantry.
That part of their story is well known, but what about the rest of their lives? What really happened to the Orphan Company of Men from Marion?
Their leader, Thorndike Brooks from Marion, was 33 years old when he led those 28 men away from Williamson County. He was elected Captain of the unit on the day that it was mustered into the Rebel Army. Brooks rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel during stiff fighting at Belmont, Shiloh and Perryville. Severely wounded at Murfreesboro, Lt. Col. Brooks was put on sick leave and didn’t return to active duty until February 1864. He commanded the 15th Tennessee in the field up until the end of the war, becoming the highest ranking Illinois soldier in the Confederate Army, and the only Illinois man to be in command of an entire regiment of the Army of the Confederate States of America.
Receiving a pardon two months after the War ended, Brooks returned to his parents’ home in Baltimore, Maryland, and became a prosperous businessman, dying peacefully in 1893.
Hibert A. “Hibe” Cunningham was the brother of Mary Logan, wife of John A. Logan. He had believed that Logan would follow him south, but was quickly proven wrong. Popular with the Confederate enlisted men, he was elected second-in-command of Thorndike Brooks’ Company.
When Brooks became the Lieutenant Colonel of the Regiment, Hibe Cunningham was elected to replace him as “G” Company Commander, with the rank of Captain in the Confederate Army. But Cunningham was openly discontented with his role, and did nothing to cover himself with glory in battle. His actual activities are somewhat of a mystery, but what is known is that in June of 1863 he requested a furlough and disappeared from the Confederate camps.
He showed up at the Union Army headquarters of his brother-in-law and requested a Federal commission. While still listed in the Confederate ranks as a deserter, Hibe was sworn in as an aide-de-camp to his sister’s husband, Major General John A. Logan, and finished the war in Union blue.
He had the dubious distinction of having been a Captain in both Armies. In 1878 he traveled from Marion to Washington and met with Logan and Thorndike Brooks, and the three men did become reconciled. He was a pallbearer at Brook’s funeral and died in 1895 at the age of sixty.
Henry C. Hooper was 37 years old, no longer a young man in those days, when the Civil War broke out. He was a telegrapher by trade, and a widower with five children at home. But he believed so strongly in the Southern Cause that he left his home in Marion and went with the others to Union City, and into the 15th Tennessee Regiment of the Confederate Army. He was elected Second Lieutenant and fought, although not notably, in the Battles of Belmont and Shiloh.
As Brooks and Cunningham were promoted, Hopper was named First Lieutenant of “G” Company. But he was taken ill and put on the sick list in July of 1862, and so he missed the battles of Perryville and Murfreesboro.
He returned to his unit in January of 1863, but put in his resignation, ostensibly on the grounds that his five children back in Illinois needed him. He was discharged on March 14, 1863, and traveled back to his home in Williamson County. He later moved to Graves County, Kentucky, after the War and finished his life there.
The fourth ranking officer of the Southern Illinois (“Orphan”) Company was Harvey L. Hays. A hard-drinking Irishman, Hays was a fighting soldier, and distinguished himself in combat, first at Belmont, and then at Shiloh. It was said that he was roaring drunk at Shiloh, but he was cited for facing the Union artillery fire with conspicuous bravery.
He was elected Second Lieutenant because of his battlefield heroics, but did not serve as an officer for very long. He was so much trouble as a quarrelsome drunk that he was cashiered from the Confederate Army for the good of the service in June, 1862.
With his life out of control, he did not return to Southern Illinois and was never heard from again.
Private W.J. Davis and G.L. Patterson fought honorably at Belmont, and then at Shiloh. But it was at Shiloh on April 6, 1862, that they gave their lives for the Confederate cause.
Private Calvin Randall and J.T. Roland also fought at Shiloh and were mortally wounded on that day. Both later died in the Confederate hospital at Lauderdale Springs, Mississippi, in May 1862.
Private R. L. Walker was wounded at Shiloh and was later discharged for medical reasons on January 1, 1863. Private J.K.P. Witt was captured and spent the last years of the War in a Union prison camp in Ohio. Private E.J.J. Wortham was transferred out of the 15th and into another Confederate unit and our records do not follow his service career.
J. M. Childers and J.C. Kyle had enlisted in 1861 with the rest of the Marion Rebels, but were found medically unfit for duty and were quickly returned to civilian life. Private William Wallace was allowed to resign from service for personal reasons in September of 1861.
James Bell was a Private and fought at Belmont and Shiloh, but did not re-enlist when his one-year term was up. He was discharged in June 1862. The same with Privates William J. Brown, Alex McKensie, A. R. McKinelly, Ronald M. Randall, Gardner Sherman, W.R. Tinker, and Sergeant G.W. Wandell. All took their discharges at the end of one year and went back home, presumably to Williamson County.
At the bottom of the Orphans’ roster, having earned the stigma of less than honorable, are Sergeant George H. Dodson, Corporal G.W. Perry, Privates A.J. Lowe, Henry Gifford, Flemming Jent, and A.J. Wilkerson. These men fought less than valiantly for the Confederacy, sometimes even refusing to go into combat, and finally were listed as having deserted from the Army.
All of these men, heroes and shirkers alike, were undoubtedly treated with disrespect and suspicion by Union sympathizers when they returned to Marion after the War. It is not difficult to believe that perhaps divided sentiments such as these were an underlying cause of the original “Bloody Vendetta” which first gave Williamson County such a violent reputation in the 1870s. We do know that the Civil War was a terrible disaster for all of America, and nowhere was it more tragic than right here in our hometown.”
For further information, see the post “Civil War Southern Sympathizers”
Sam’s Notes: Flemming Jent is the same person as Fleming Gent who was the father of Marion businessman Charles Gent. Fleming was a Marion businessman and served as a Marion Alderman in 1891 and 1892. For more information, see the post Fleming Gent
Another Marion man in Brook’s regiment was William Mart Davis.
(Extracted from the article “What Became of Marion’s Orphans”, by Bernard A. Paul, Marion Living magazine, August 2008)