James Adkins Morgan, Corporal
3rd Regiment Confederate Cavalry, Company C

JAMES ADKINS MORGAN, son of John Benton1 Morgan and Mary Ann Nicholson, was born in South Carolina, 29 May 1839. He was enumerated with his family in De Kalb County, Alabama in 1850, but by 1857, after he turned 18, he appears in records in nearby Jackson County, Alabama. He was not living with his parents when the DeKalb County 1860 census was completed, and was also not found on the Jackson County census. A land patent dated March 1, 1858 indicates he was living in Jackson County before the outbreak of the war.[1]

The State of Alabama seceded from the Union during a Convention assembled at Montgomery on January 11, 1861[2]:

“Be it declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, That the State of Alabama now withdraws, and is hereby withdrawn from the Union known as "the United States of America," and henceforth ceases to be one of said United States, and is, and of right ought to be a Sovereign and Independent State.”

CONFEDERATE MONEY
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Confederate Money

NOTE: Using the Consumer Price Index, $50.00 from 1862 is worth $1,120 in 2010. www.measuringworth.com

The first call for volunteers (100,000) was March 6, 1861; the second call (400,000 volunteers or militia) was January 23, 1862. By April 16, 1862, the First Conscription Act was passed, calling for all white men ages 18 to 35 to join for the duration of hostilities. This was the first military draft in American history. This act extended the enlistments of the twelve-month volunteers who were still in service for three years or until the end of the war. All white males between the ages of 18 and 35 were required to serve for a similar term. There were many exemptions based on occupation, and those not exempted could hire a substitute. The act allowed all men who volunteered for duty before 15 May 1862 to organize their own regiments or reorganize existing ones and elect their own officers. They would receive a $50.00 bounty.[3]

James Adkins Morgan met the deadline, enlisting in Co. C, 3rd Confederate Cavalry on May 14, 1862. He joined for duty and was enrolled May 15, 1862, at Shell Mound, Alabama, by R.B. Lankford. James Morgan appears on the Company Muster-in Roll on May 16, 1862 as a private in Co. C. He has also been found on muster rolls for Co. D and Co. G.[4] Also known as Howard’s Battalion Confederate Cavalry, the 3rd Confederate Cavalry Regiment was organized in May 1862 from units of the 11th Alabama Cavalry and the 2nd Tennessee Cavalry. The men in these units would have been required to enlist, according to the Conscription Act, but by enlisting before May 15, they were able to reorganize their old units and add new volunteers. As a result, the unit records show that Captain R.B. Lankford’s Company, in the Battalion of Confederate Cavalry Volunteers commanded by Lt. Col James R. Howard, was called into the service of the Confederate States in the Provisional Army, under the Provisions of the Act of Congress passed February 1861, by R.B. Lankford from the 15th day of May, 1862.[5]

Certificate of Mustering Officer

I Certify, on honor, That I have carefully examined the men whose names are born on this Roll, their horses, and equipments, and have accepted them into the service of the Confederate States for the term of two years and (4) four months from this 16th day of May, 1962, reenlisted.

James R Howard, Lt Col. Commanding and Mustering Officer
Date June 19, 1862
Station Camp Kirby, Tennessee

James Morgan appeared on the roll in Capt R.B. Lankford’s Co., Howard’s Battalion Confederate Cavalry, Camp Kirby, Tennessee, on June 19, 1862. This company subsequently became Co. C, 3rd Regiment Confederate Cavalry, also known as the 11th, 13th and Howard’s Regiment Conf Cavalry, and the 11th Battalion Alabama Cavalry. It completed organization August 20, 1862 with ten companies, A to K. A company was composed of 100 men, commanded by a captain. It could further be divided into 2 platoons, or 4 sections or 8 squads, led by the following officers (commissioned and non-commissioned): a Captain, 1st. Lieutenant, 2nd. Lieutenant, 1st Sergeant, 4 Sergeant, and 8 Corporals; plus 2 musicians. When the company was divided into platoons, the captain commanded one and the 1st Lt. the other. There was a sergeant for each section, and a corporal for each squad.

RESOURCES:
Atlanta Campaign 1864
Battle of Chickamauga
Battle of New Hope Church
Battle of Noonday Creek
Battle of Resaca
Battle of Stones River
Civil War Army Organization
Civil War Photos at the National Archives
Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System
First Battle of Dalton
First Battle of Murfreesboro
Friends of Resaca Battlefield
General Joseph Wheeler
Tullahoma Campaign

During the war the 3rd was attached to Joseph Wheeler’s Division, the Army of Tennessee. They also fought under Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. The 3rd Regiment Confederate Cavalry was involved in many battles and skirmishes, including Murfreesboro, Triune, Hoover's Gap, Chickamauga, Bridgeport, Trenton, McAfee's, and Noonday Creek.

The Regimental return for September 1862, shows field and staff and companies stationed at Camp Maxey near Albany, Kentucky, however, Captain Lankford’s Co. C, was in the area of Stephenson, Alabama scouting the Memphis and Charleston Railroad.[6]

“The Memphis and Charleston Railroad, completed in 1857, was the first railroad in the United States to link the Atlantic Ocean with the Mississippi River. Chartered in 1846 the railroad ran from Memphis, Tennessee to Stevenson, Alabama through the towns of Corinth, Mississippi and Huntsville, Alabama. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, this railroad became of strategic importance as the only east-west railroad running through the Confederacy. On the morning of April 11, 1862, Union troops led by General Mitchell captured Huntsville, cutting off this railroads use for the Confederacy. The railroad and its route through Corinth, Mississippi was a significant factor in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.”[7]

He appeared on a muster roll for Sept 1, 1862 to Jan 18, 1863, dated Jan 18, 1863. The 3rd Regiment was in the Battle of Stone's River near Murfreesboro, Tennessee from December 30, 1862 through January 03, 1863.[8]

The Company Muster Roll for Sept 1, 1862 to Jan 18, 1863, dated Jan 18, 1963 shows the station of company at Shelbyville, Tennessee, 72 miles from Stevenson.[9]

3rd Regiment Field and Staff Officers:
Cols. James R. Howard (resigned)
William Newton Estes (DeKalb County; KIA, Chattanooga)
P. H. Rice (wounded, Georgia)
Lt. Cols. William Newton Estes (promoted)
Patrick Henry Rice (Jackson; promoted)
G. C. Sandusky (Tennessee; resigned)
John McCaskill (Wilcox; wounded)
Majors William Newton Estes (promoted)
G. C. Sandusky (promoted)
John McCaskill (promoted)
F. M. Corn (DeKalb; resigned)
F. C. Reese (Tennessee)
Adjutants D. C. Nicholson (transferred)
N. Rothrock (KIA, Murfreesboro)
Companies:
"A" (DeKalb County): F. M. Corn (promoted, Major); J. T. Hogue
"B" (DeKalb Co., AL): L. W. Lynch (resigned); Henry Small
"C" (DeKalb Co., AL): Rufus B. Lankford
"D" (Wilcox Co., AL): John McCaskill (promoted); Joseph Robinson
"E" (GA): John D. Pope (resigned); W. A. Williamson
"F" (GA): John Bates (resigned); T. P. Edmondson
"G" (Jackson Co., AL): Patrick Henry Rice (promoted); J. T. Witherspoon
"H" (TN): G. C. Sandusky (promoted); W. P. Moore
"I" (AL): Thomas S. Rees
"K"(DeKalb Co., AL): Daniel Clayton (wounded)
Source: "Third Confederate Cavalry Regiment", online at http://history-sites.com/~kjones/csarmy.html, accessed March 17, 2012

James Morgan apparently was promoted from private, as he appeared as 4th Corporal on a muster roll for Dec 31, 1862 to April 30, 1863, dated April 30, 1863. This record indicates he was enlisted by Major Estes and was last paid by Captain Gibbons to December 31, 1862.[10]

The Company Muster Roll for Dec 31, 1862 to April 30, 1863 dated April 30, 1863 shows the company stationed at Smithville, Tennessee, 66 miles from Shelbyville. The events recorded included a march, starting on 1st day January from Murfreesboro, Tennessee to La Vergne, Tennessee. They attacked the enemy wagon train and captured a great many wagons and some four pieces of artillery and captured 200 hundred prisoners. The unit burned and destroyed much of the enemy’s property. On 29 January they left Shelbyville and marched to Fort Donaldson and attacked the enemy in their rifle pits and drove them away and into their Fort and then retired from the place of action. On the 7th April 1863 near Liberty they had a skirmish with the enemy; two Lieutenants, Morris and Frazier, and 25 privates were captured by the enemy. They were recaptured by a detail from the Brigade near La Vergne.[11]

J. A. Morgan 4th Corporal Co C 3rd Regiment Confederate Cavalry appears on a muster roll for April 30 to December 31, 1863, dated December 31, 1863. This record indicates he was enlisted by Major Estes, Shell Mound, for a period of 2 years 5 months 20 days. He was last paid by Capt Gibbons to April 30, 1863. (This will be his last record of pay for the duration of the war.) He was absent on surgeon’s certificate 21 days from 20 Aug.[12]

The Company Muster Roll for April 30 to Dec 31, 1863 dated Dec 31, 1863 shows the station of company at Varnell, Georgia. There were skirmishes at Smithville, Tennessee, on the 5th of June, and fighting at Tullahoma, Tennessee, from the 1st of July to the 3rd of July on the march from Tullahoma to the Tennessee River. They were on picket at Sublett’s Ferry, Alabama on the Tennessee River in July and August. (Sublett’s Ferry crossed the River at what is now the end of County Road 558, which branches off of County Road 33 south of the Bellefonte power plant, southeast of Hollywood on U.S. Highway 72 in Jackson County. Since the Tennessee River was dammed into a lake, the site of the original Sublett’s Ferry crossing is now under water.)

The Third Regiment was engaged at the Battle of Chickamauga between September 19 through 21, 1863. They were part of the raid on Union General Rosecrans’s communication lines above Chattanooga, Tennessee between September 30 and October 17, 1863. As this was not in the company report, it is not clear if Co. C was a part of that.[13]

They engaged in the battle of Philadelphia, Tennessee, on the 15th of October. They crossed the Tennessee River at Louden on the 14th Nov, and were in an engagement at Varnel Station on the 15th November.[14]

James Morgan appears on the muster roll March 1, 1864 as absent due to sickness in January and February 1864.

The Company Muster Roll for January and February, 1864 shows station of company as Tunnel Hill, Georgia. They left Varnell Station 10 Jan and marched to Oxford, Calhoun County, Alabama, arriving there on the 19th. They left Oxford 10 Feb, arrived at Rome, Georgia, 15 Feb, then left Rome the 18th, arriving in Dalton, Georgia on the 21st. They commenced skirmishes with the enemy the 25th, skirmished 3 days, then fell back to Tunnel Hill and went on picket duty. As Calhoun County, Alabama was the home of James Morgan’s future wife, Ann Caver, it is possible they met during this time. It seems unlikely that he went back home to Jackson County when he was absent due to his sickness. He could have been recuperating in the Oxford area.[14]

The company Muster Roll for Feb 29 to June 30, 1864, shows station of company near Marietta, Georgia. Lankford resigned March 3, 1864, after being charged with three charges, it appears he was absent without permission.[16]

They engaged the enemy at Resaca, Georgia on the 13th May and repulsed them. On the 27 of May they engaged the enemy at or near New Hope and drove them back. On the 16th June the enemy’s cavalry attacked the unit at Noonday Creek, but the unit drove them from the field.

Atlanta Campaign 1864, image by Andrei Nacu, Engelsk Wikipedia, This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one

The Atlanta Campaign, Northwest Georgia and Atlanta, Summer of 1864
Andrei Nacu, Engelsk Wikipedia
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

The 3rd Regiment Confederate Cavalry were engaged in many skirmishes between May 01 and September 08, 1864 during the Union Atlanta campaign. They were part of the force to defend Savannah, Georgia from Sherman. They evacuated from Savannah on December 21, 1864.[17]

Bennett Place

Bennett Place, site of surrender, April 26, 1865
drawing by Harper's Weekly, 1865

Finally, James Morgan appears on a muster roll of officers and men paroled in accordance with the terms of a military convention entered into on the 26th day of April 1865 between General Joseph E. Johnston, Commanding Confederate Army, and Major General W.T. Sherman Commanding United States Army in North Carolina. The roll was dated at Hillsboro, North Carolina April 28, 1865. He was paroled May 3, 1865.[18]

This was the second surrender of the war, after Appomattox Court House, and the largest. It included about 32,000 men camped nearby, and most of the Confederate forces in North Carolina, as well as South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The conditions of the parole allowed the men to return home without being disturbed by U.S. authority as long as they obeyed the law. They were allowed to keep their horses so they could, "put in a crop to carry themselves and their families through the next winter." [19]

A number of men in the 3rd Confederate Cavalry were from families related or closely associated with the James Morgan family. These were:
BURT, Calvin, Co. B
BURT, Elijah, Co. I
BURT, Elisha, Co. I(his son James Calvin married Minnie Ola Holdridge. Minnie’s brother Horace Holdridge married Mary Ophelia Morgan, James Morgan’s daughter.)
BURT, Groves, Co. K
BURT, Henry, Co. K
MORGAN, G. W., Co. A
MORGAN, John M., Co. B, Acting Commissary of Subsistence (James A. Morgan’s brother)
MORGAN, William, Co. C
NICHOLSON, M. M., Co. B, 3rd Lt. (James Morgan’s mother was a Nicholson)
NICHOLSON, Bradford H., Co. B
NICHOLSON, D. L., Co. B
NICHOLSON, O. P., Co. B, Sgt.
NICHOLSON, P. E., Co. B
NICHOLSON, Virgil, Co. C, Sgt.


  1. Gregory A. Boyd,J.D., Family Maps of Jackson County, Alabama (www.arphax.com: Arphax Publishing Co., 1998), document number 25509.
  2. Ordinances of Secession 13 Confederate States of America, online at http://americancivilwar.com/documents/ordinance_secession.html#alabama, accessed March 17, 2012
  3. 3Coulter, Ellis Merton, The Confederate States of America, 1861-1865(Texas: University Press of Texas, 1950, renewed 1978 by Louisiana State University Press, and the Littlefield Fund for Southern History)
  4. 4Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Alabama, James A Morgan; Publication M311 ; File No. 1437 and 1438 (Washington, DC: NARA, 2008) online at www.footnote.com
  5. The Third Regiment Confederate Cavalry unit records, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations Raised Directly by the Confederate Government, micropublication M258 (Washington: National Archives), online at www.footnote.com, Unit Card 42
  6. The Third Regiment Confederate Cavalry unit records, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations Raised Directly by the Confederate Government, micropublication M258 (Washington: National Archives), online at www.footnote.com, Unit Card 22
  7. "Memphis and Charleston Railroad", online at www.Wikipedia.com, accessed March 17, 2012
  8. The Elijah Burt Family of DeKalb County, Alabama, online at http://webpages.charter.net/mallardj/Family/burt/burt1.htm
  9. The Third Regiment Confederate Cavalry unit records, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations Raised Directly by the Confederate Government, micropublication M258 (Washington: National Archives), online at www.footnote.com, Unit Card 43
  10. Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Alabama, James A Morgan; Publication M311 ; File No. 1437 and 1438 (Washington, DC: NARA, 2008) online at www.footnote.com
  11. The Third Regiment Confederate Cavalry unit records, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations Raised Directly by the Confederate Government, micropublication M258 (Washington: National Archives), online at www.footnote.com, Unit Card 44-45
  12. Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Alabama, James A Morgan; Publication M311 ; File No. 1437 and 1438 (Washington, DC: NARA, 2008) online at www.footnote.com
  13. The Elijah Burt Family of DeKalb County, Alabama, online at http://webpages.charter.net/mallardj/Family/burt/burt1.htm
  14. The Third Regiment Confederate Cavalry unit records, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations Raised Directly by the Confederate Government, micropublication M258 (Washington: National Archives), online at www.footnote.com, Unit Card 46
  15. The Third Regiment Confederate Cavalry unit records, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations Raised Directly by the Confederate Government, micropublication M258 (Washington: National Archives), online at www.footnote.com, Unit Card 47
  16. The Third Regiment Confederate Cavalry unit records, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations Raised Directly by the Confederate Government, micropublication M258 (Washington: National Archives), online at www.footnote.com, Unit Card 48
  17. The Elijah Burt Family of DeKalb County, Alabama, online at http://webpages.charter.net/mallardj/Family/burt/burt1.htm
  18. Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Alabama, James A Morgan; Publication M311 ; File No. 1437 and 1438 (Washington, DC: NARA, 2008). On this final muster roll his enlistment was reported as Nov. 4, 1861 at Trousdale, Tennessee. This appears to be an error, possibly due to the fact that many of the men in the 3rd Confederate Cavalry were originally in John F. Thomason’s unit of the 2nd Tennessee, which did enlist Nov. 4, 1861 at Trousdale. James Adkins has not been found on the muster rolls of the 2nd Tennessee Cavalry.
  19. Ulysses S. Grant, www.wikipedia.com, accessed March 18, 2012, citing Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885), chapter 67