The 7th Tennessee Infantry in the Civil War. A History and Roster

417 Pages·2013·50.21 MB·English

by  William Thomas Venner

The 7th Tennessee Infantry in the
Civil War
A HISTORY AND ROSTER
William Thomas Venner
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
e-ISBN: 978-1-4766-0209-7

© 2013 William Thomas Venner. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publisher.

On the cover: foreground Confederate Soldiers of the 7th Tennessee Infantry of
Archer’s Brigade (Mathew Brady; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS); photo frame
Jupiterimages/
Comstock/Thinkstock); background map of the battlefield of Gettysburg, 1863
(Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 1861-1865)
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
This book is dedicated to the men of
the 7th Tennessee Infantry and to their families.
We must not let their memories fade.
Table of Contents
Introduction
PART I : HISTORY
1. May 28, 1861: Early Afternoon
2. August 2, 1861: Morning
3. May 8, 1862: Morning
4. August 20, 1862: Before Dawn
5. December 14, 1862: Early Morning
6. July 1, 1863: Morning
7. July 3, 1863: Morning
8. July 3, 1863: Sunset
9. May 4, 1864: Morning
10. October 20, 1864: Afternoon
PART II : 7TH TENNESSEE INFANTRY ROSTER
Part I Notes
Bibliography
List of Names
Introduction
How is it that a Californian would end up writing a history about a Tennessee
infantry regiment?
As far as I know I have no ancestors who were in the American Civil War. My
father’s people came to the United States in the 1850s—Italians and Austrians—
bent on escaping Europe’s wars. They settled in northern Wisconsin and wanted
no part of America’s conflict. My mother’s family—German immigrants—
arrived in the 1880s and immediately headed for America’s Great Plains. So, as
the old saying goes, I didn’t have a dog in the fight.
But I’ve always been fascinated by our nation’s past. In fact, even today, fifty
years later, I can still recall the first time I became conscious of the Battle of
Gettysburg. It was the summer of 1963, I was 12 going on 13 and sitting on a
stool in our small town’s one-room library. The librarian handed me the July
issue of National Geographic and inside was a story about the Battle of
Gettysburg. I still remember sitting there, leaning up against the cold spines of
shelved books, closing my eyes, and trying to envision what it was like to have
been there. The graphic, fold-out maps gripped my imagination with such force;
from that moment on the study of the Civil War grew into one of my passions.
I became obsessed with trying to conjure up the sights and sounds of Pickett’s
Charge. I poured over maps, and read and reread the American Heritage Picture
History of the Civil War. My parents bought me a Marx Civil War Playset with
its scores of plastic soldiers and I recreated every major battle, as well as
creating countless battles of my own. I then acquired the Avalon Hill Gettysburg
board game with its squared-off grid map, rectangular gray and blue combat
pieces, and its colored Order of Appearance cards. I learned the names of the
brigade commanders and strategized as I pushed infantry, artillery, and cavalry
units across Gettysburg’s landscape. I seem to have spent a good chunk of my
childhood moving plastic Civil War figures through the sand in the backyard, or
tiny cardboard pieces across a board map, all the while trying to replicate what it
must have been like to have been there.
When I was a junior in high school my mother and I traveled from California to
Pennsylvania and we spent several incredible days exploring Gettysburg. I
Pennsylvania and we spent several incredible days exploring Gettysburg. I
walked the fields, my feet treading upon the very ground my imagination had
envisioned; I gazed where the soldiers looked and tried to feel what they did. I
left Gettysburg with a better sense of the geography but with hardly any more
understanding of what it was like to have been there. Then I went off to college,
leaving behind my board games and plastic soldiers, but I didn’t forget the Civil
War; indeed—I earned a master’s degree in American history.
I became a high school teacher in Southern California and taught history. I
turned to living history as one of my teaching methods in an attempt to make the
past interesting and relevant. I discovered Civil War re-enacting and used this
activity as a way to widen my students’ interest in history and push them toward
trying to fathom that question, “What was it like to have been there?”
I continued re-enacting, and since I lived in California and had no ancestors
demanding I choose one side or the other, I selected the best-led unit I could find
—it turned out to be the 19th Indiana Infantry, a unit based in Los Angeles. We
were a small unit, no more than two dozen at the very most, but we were deeply
interested in trying to get it right. We each took the name of a soldier from the
regiment—my Hoosier was James Van Tooth—and we took it upon ourselves to
learn about that person. My research determined that Van Tooth was a brick
maker from Plainville, Indiana. He enlisted as a private, rose through the ranks
to sergeant, and was killed during the Cold Harbor campaign in June 1864.
Unexpectedly, my research on Van Tooth led to something much larger. Once
again I was that young boy sitting on a stool in the library, but now I had more
tools to aid my quest; I wrote to the Indiana State Library, dug through
microfilms, perused old newspapers, and intensely read letters and journals.
Ultimately I published five books about the 19th Indiana and the Iron Brigade.
By the time my research ended I felt I had gained a small insight into James Van
Tooth and his fellow soldiers and hopefully had shared that information with
others.
Nonetheless, I knew in my heart I had not answered my question, “What was it
like to have been there?” I realized the Hoosiers were only half the story. I had
studied this single collection of Indiana soldiers—1,200 in all—and now
understood a little about their lives and experiences, but these men did not act in
a vacuum. They also were defined by those they fought. I was compelled to learn
about the men they faced. Since the war’s most important battle was Gettysburg
it only seemed natural to investigate a unit the 19th faced in that battle.
However, once I had settled upon Gettysburg the question followed—what to
However, once I had settled upon Gettysburg the question followed—what to
investigate? Gettysburg’s historians have reveled in the classic fight between the
Iron Brigade and the North Carolina regiments on the battle’s first day—a
confrontation spawning many well-crafted literary works. I figured one more
book about the Iron Brigade versus North Carolina would not broaden our
knowledge about what took place on July 1, west of Gettysburg.
Fortunately as I studied the record of that day’s conflict I noticed much less had
been written about the morning clash between the Iron Brigade and Archer’s
Brigade. To me, there appeared to be a historical gap and an opportunity for me
to help further our understanding of what happened. I investigated the regiments
in Archer’s command and discovered little had been recorded about the 7th
Tennessee. I now had the other half of the account to complete the story—the
7th Tennessee Infantry.
My research took me to Nashville and the Tennessee Archives. I invested a
small fortune in photocopies, and purchased a set of microfilm reels containing
the 7th Tennessee’s personnel and payroll records. I returned to California and
began assembling the regiment, man by man. This study took over a year as I
spent hours on microfilm readers at the local Mormon Family History center. I
became familiar with many of those soldiers, and one such man—Archibald
Norris—became my guide and mentor into the intrigues of the 7th Tennessee.
“Archie” Norris left behind a journal, chronicling his experiences and thoughts,
giving me the means by which to glean an inkling about what he thought it was
like to be there. Archie was a sharp, quick thinking, and contemplative young
man. He grew up in Wilson County, Tennessee, attended the local schools and
eventually graduated from Pennsylvania’s Allegheny College. Norris returned
home and became a teacher in Rome, Tennessee. When the war began Archie
reluctantly enlisted, writing, “I owe allegiance to my State and though I may
regret the steps which my State may take, yet it is my imperative duty to support
it.” Surprisingly, this teacher-turned-warrior developed into a capable soldier. He
earned the admiration and respect of his comrades and they elected him captain
of his company. Archie served in the regiment for the entire war until being
captured a week before Appomattox.
Archie Norris was just one of the nearly 1,000 Tennesseans serving in the 7th
Tennessee, but it was through his assistance that I became immersed in the
regiment. I had great plans to quickly finish my research and put the
Tennesseans’ thoughts and actions to paper, but life interfered and for the next
Tennesseans’ thoughts and actions to paper, but life interfered and for the next
fifteen years Norris and his pards remained packed away in file boxes.
Remarkably, the Tennesseans refused to go away. Their whisperings echoed too
loudly to ignore and finally I reopened my long-ignored file boxes and blew the
dust off their papers. I reread everything and prepared to write, but the world had
changed since I first had begun this Tennessee journey—the Internet had been
invented.
My stepson helped me set up a website and soon descendants of the men of the
7th Tennessee were writing me, sharing their family stories, lending me
photographs, and willing me to get the story right. Presently there have been
three dozen descendants who’ve contacted me, representing nearly sixty men
who were in the regiment. Some descendants did even more than just send me
their family records. Jack and Ruth Cato, descendants of Sgt. William Cato,
invited me to come and visit. I took them up on their offer and they proved to be
delightful hosts. Jack shared with me his ancestor’s world. He took me on back
roads and showed me ancient farmhouses—the homes of the 7th Tennessee
boys; we walked across the fragrant deep bottom farmlands—the very fields the
Tennessee boys worked before they set down their farm tools and took up
muskets; and we went to the family cemeteries where these civilian-soldiers now
rested. I know now this book is so much richer because of the Catos and all the
7th Tennessee descendants. It is almost as if the spirits of those old boys played
a part in helping me to get it right.
The 7th Tennessee Infantry came from four counties: Wilson, Smith, Dekalb,
and Sumner, and basically was centered around the town of Lebanon. A writer
for the Lebanon Herald called them “the very flower of Lebanon and vicinity.”
These exuberant men filled the regiment’s ranks at war’s start clamoring to get
at the Yanks. They vowed their thousand rifles would bring victory to the
Southern cause and were, as Lt. Col. John Goodner wrote, “anxious to confront
the enemy on the battle front.”
The 7th Tennessee was part of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and
these soldiers fought in every battle in the three years between May 1862 and
April 1865. The thousand Tennesseans suffered nearly 800 casualties, with some
men enduring as many as five different wounds. One worn-out veteran, not long
before the war ended, wrote, “Who of us will be the last to go?” This wearied
young man had seen so many of his friends fall. Seventy-nine Tennesseans were
killed in action and another 61 died from their battle injuries. Sixty-seven men
died from disease and 16 more were buried while in prisoner-of-war camps. And
finally, two died from accidental shootings, a third drowned, and a fourth was