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was made brigadier-general in the provisional army of the Confederate States, being commissioned on September 28, 1863.
During 1864 the scene of Adams' operations was in north Alabama, Mississippi and west Tennessee.
As the year 1865 opened it was evident that the days of the Southern Confederacy were about numbered.
The army of the Tennessee had been worn down to a feeble remnant.
What was left of it had been sent into North Carolina to help the forces in that section make some sort of headway against Sherman.
General Wilson was preparing his great cavalry expedition to sweep through Alabama and Georgia.
Forrest, with a remnant of his once splendid and invincible cavalry, attempted to make head against the numerous and splendidly equipped body of horsemen led by Wilson.
If he could have concentrated his bands, widely scattered for the purpose of guarding many points, he might have repeated the victories of Okolona and Guntown.
But the various regiments belonging to his command, with their broken-down horses, could not get together in time to offer effective resistance.
Wirt Adams with his brigade formed part of the force with which Forrest tried to stem the tide of disaster.
Though the Confederates fought with the old-time spirit, it was all in vain.
At last news came of the capitulation of the main armies of the Confederacy.
Then Forrest and all the bands led by him laid down their arms also, and peace again reigned throughout the land.
General Adams returned to his home in Mississippi and resumed the vocations of civil life.
On May 1, 1888, he was killed in Jackson, Miss., by John H. Martin.
Thus perished a man who had once led Mississippi's sons in the thickest of the fray and who had gone unscathed through many a storm.
James L. Alcorn, a brigadier-general of State troops, was born in Illinois, November 4, 1816, and was reared and educated in Kentucky, where he served in the legislature
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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