Biographical.
[234] [235]Major-Generals and brigadier-generals, Provisional army of the Confederate States, Accredited to Mississippi.
Brigadier-General Wirt Adams, of Mississippi, was one of the most dauntless cavalry leaders of the war. He was a commissioner from Mississippi to Louisiana to ask that State to go with Mississippi in secession and the formation of a Confederacy, and as soon as Mississippi seceded he went to work to recruit soldiers for the Confederate army. He raised a regiment known as the First Mississippi cavalry, and was commissioned colonel on October 15, 1861. Until the spring of 1862 he was engaged generally in scouting and picket duty, keeping the Confederate generals apprised of the movements of the enemy and occasionally skirmishing with detached parties. In the spring of 1862 he was given charge of the companies organized under the call of Governor Rector, of Arkansas. Accompanying Van Dorn to Mississippi he served on his staff as chief of artillery in the battle of Corinth. In the campaign in north Mississippi, both before and after Shiloh, he was ever on the move with his command until the name of Wirt Adams was famous throughout the West. When the Federals were advancing upon Chattanooga under Negley in the summer of 1862, Adams, with a smaller force, impeded their march and brought their schemes to naught. In the campaign resulting in the battles of Iuka and Corinth he performed very important services. During the Grierson raid in the spring of 1863, Colonel Adams did the best that could be done with the means at his command to check and impede the movements of the great Federal raider. At Union Church, though unable to defeat Grierson, he did cause him to turn aside from his intended attack upon Natchez. For his important services during the Vicksburg campaign he [236] 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 [237] in 1843. In 1844 he removed to Coahoma county, Miss., and engaged in planting. He was a prominent and trusted leader in the Whig party. In the Mississippi convention of 1861 he served as a Union delegate and earnestly opposed secession. He yielded, however, to the decision of his State, and was appointed by the convention one of the brigadier-generals of State troops. He marched with his troops into central Kentucky in the fall of 1861, and served under Gen. S. B. Buckner. Not receiving any commission from the Confederate government, he spent much of his time acting as a recruiting agent, and was quite successful in getting Kentuckians to enlist for the war. He succeeded in getting his own command, a brigade of Mississippians, to enlist in the Confederate service. Then at his own request he was relieved from duty and was succeeded by Gen. Lloyd Tilghman, who said, in a letter to Asst. Adjt.-Gen. W. W. Mackall: ‘Under all the circumstances, I doubt not that General Alcorn has made the best of things.’ General Alcorn upon his return home was placed by Governor Pettus in command of troops enlisted for sixty days. These were under the orders of Gen. Leonidas Polk and were armed with every variety of weapon. General Alcorn's service throughout the war consisted in getting soldiers ready for the field. In this capacity he was faithful and diligent. After the close of the war the State government of Mississippi was reorganized on the plan of President Andrew Johnson. Brigadier-General Humphreys was elected governor, and to prove to the people of the United States the sincerity of their renewed allegiance the legislature elected to the United States Senate two old-line Whigs, Wm. L. Sharkey and James L. Alcorn, who, like Alexander Stephens of Georgia, had opposed secession until the question was decided and had then bowed to the will of the State. Representatives were chosen at the same time, but Congress, in the hands of the ultra-radical wing of the Republican party, refused admission to these senators and representatives. At a [238] subsequent election, held under the reconstruction acts, he was the nominee of the regular Republican convention of the State for governor, and defeated Lewis Dent, a brother-in-law of General Grant, who was the candidate of the Democrats. Alcorn had joined the Republican party in the hope of building up a white Republican party in the State and with the idea that many of his old Whig followers would join him. Governor Alcorn was elected to the Senate of the United States in 1871, and in November resigned his post as governor to take his seat in that body, where he served with honor. He was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1890. His death occurred at Eagle Nest, December 20, 1894.
Brigadier-General William E. Baldwin entered the Confederate service early in 1861 and was commissioned colonel of the Fourteenth Mississippi infantry. He was assigned to the army in central Kentucky and in February, with his command, constituted part of the force at Fort Donelson. The important part borne by him and his troops at that important post is best told in the report of
