James D. Porter, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.1, Tennessee
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

---

[296] Park he was selected by the secretary of war to speak for the Confederates, and his words on that occasion are monumental in their strength and calmness, presenting in unassailable force the rectitude of the Confederate cause; while he pointed out that the ‘record of the heroic past, which, though written in the blood of civil war, yet was essentially American in all the glorious attributes of American citizenship,’ is to be cherished by a united people.

---

Brigadier-General Tyree H. Bell

Brigadier-General Tyree H. Bell, one of the many gallant officers given by the Volunteer State to the Southern Confederacy, entered the service as captain in the Twelfth Tennessee infantry, June 4, 1861, and was elected lieutenant-colonel. His military duties during 1861 were with the army under Maj.-Gen. Leonidas Polk at Columbus, Ky. He commanded the regiment at the battle of Belmont, November 7, 1861, the colonel being that day in command of a brigade. At Shiloh he was again in command of his regiment, Col. R. M. Russell having charge of the First brigade, First division, army of Mississippi. Colonel Russell in his report of the operations of his brigade at Shiloh says: ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Bell and Maj. R. P. Caldwell were distinguished by their courage and energy. The former had two horses shot under him.’ In July, 862, Bell was promoted to colonel of the Twelfth Tennessee and led it in the Kentucky campaign, participating in the battle of Richmond, Ky. Colonel Bell after this had a cavalry command operating in Tennessee and Kentucky. He was raiding in rear of the Union army during the Murfreesboro campaign, and at the time of the battle of Chickamauga, and afterward, was busy upon the flank and rear of the Federal troops. On the 25th of January, 1864, Major-General Forrest, who had assumed command of all the cavalry operating in north Mississippi, west Tennessee and Kentucky, placed Colonel Bell in command of a brigade in his division, consisting of the regiments