Knox-Lincoln-Kennebec County ME Archives Military Records.....GRAY, Oliver Crosby July 17, 1864 Civilwar 3rd Arkansas Cavalry ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/me/mefiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Bill Boggess william-boggess@webtv.net February 22, 2006, 3:32 am Miscellenious Coincidences have always tantalized my mind, this one even more so than most. Sunday, 17 July 1864, with Confederates trying to hang on to rail center of Atlanta, the Federals trying to jerk it out of their hands because its their main rail center, ---- this date is date Jefferson Davis relieved General Joseph Eggleston Johnston, age 57, from command of the Confederate forces, replaced with General John Bell Hood, age 33, to ward off General William Tecumseh Sherman, age 44 ---- also being the Sunday Captain Oliver Crosby Gray, age 32, prepares his letter of request to resign the Army so to join the Navy. Oddly enough it also is date of diary entry by Olivewr's wife, Virginia Davis Gray in her 1863-1865 published diart of 1983 in Arkansas Historical Quarterly's spring and summer issue, to wit: "Remained at home yesterday --- and made a sketch (possibly Arkansas History Commission's #3249??) of Court House for Dr Die(sic, Dr Henry Montgomery Dye (1830VA-1878TX)). Was quite scared when I heard that it had to go to Richmond....." Dallas County Court House used as hospital after Jenkins Ferry Battle, 30 Apr 1864.     Captain Oliver Crosby Gray (1832ME-1905AR), commander of A Company, 3rd Regiment Arkansas Cavalry, assigned as Provost Marshall late 1863 By General Frank Crawford Armstrong, submitted his letter of request to resign to Adjutant General Samuel Cooper at Richmond, dated (Sunday) 17 July 1864, from Sandtown, GA. (Samuel Cooper, Jr., ranking general of the CSA, was the son of a Revolutionary officer from Massachusetts. He was born in New Jersey and appointed to West Point from New York. His wife was the granddaughter of the Virginia Revolutionary statesman George Mason(1725-1792). Her brother was the Confederate minister to Great Britain, James M. Mason. George Mason was a fellow vesteryman, neighbor across Pohick Creek at the Potomic, used our 4th great grandfather Robert Boggess' (1707-1773) horse race track and he or his famiy were always in court with Robert). Oliver lists four reasons he could better serve the Confederacy by leaving the Army and joining with its Navy. His superiors gave their approvals, same date, which also is when General Joseph Eggleston Johnston was relieved from command of the Army of Tennessee. General Hood's approval was dated 18 July 1864, same date he received instructions from Richmond to take command of the Army of Tennessee. Records show Oliver "resigned" 19 Aug 1864, 13 days before General Hood removed all troops from Atlanta, handing it to the Federals and General William Tecumseh "Cump" Sherman. Oliver was captured by Federal troops at Choctaw Bend, MS, 19 Nov 1864, imprisoned at Fort Massachusetts on Ship Island (Camp Townsend ?), off Biloxi, MS coastline, then exchanged three and one-half months later, 2 Mar 1865, as Captain 3rd Regiment Arkansas Cavalry. --- How can this be, --- he "resigned" from the Army 19 Aug 1864, three months before his capture??? which was 11 says before Gen Hood's massive deadly battle at Franklin, TN. Here is a list of dead, I could not find a list of all those held on Ship Island. http://www.geocities.com/samdavis596/ShipIsland.htm               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   The following superiors granted written approval to Oliver's letter, except Johnston.               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Colonel Anson W. Hobson, commander of 3rd Regiment Arkansas Cavalry   - Enl 29 Jun 1861 at Little Rock, AR. Discharged for promotion to Lt. Colonel 26 May1862. Wounded in both arms 3-5 Oct 1862 at Cornith, MS, promoted to Colonel following death of Colonel Samuel G. Earle 5 Mar 1863, Paroled 5 May 1865 at Chesterville, SC. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Colonel Thomas Harrison, commander Harrison's Brigade, born 1 May 1823 Ruhama, Jefferson County, AL, died 14 July 1891, Waco, McLennan County, TX. Promoted 18 Nov 1862 to Colonel, Brigade commander at Sandtown, GA, January 1865 to Brigadier General, Paroled 31 May 1865 at Macon, MS, later a judge, and a trustee of Balyor University. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Major General William Younger Conn Humes (1830TN-1883AL) During the Atlanta campaign he commanded a division of cavalry, one of the best. No army ever had a more splendid body of cavalry than that of the army of Tennessee in 1864             ---------------------- Brigadier General William H. "Red" Jackson, one of the most prominent living [in 1899] soldiers of Tennessee, was born at Paris, Tenn., 7 October,1835, died near Nashville, TN 30 March 1903. During the Atlanta campaign, Jackson commanded the cavalry corps of the army of the Mississippi, which participated in all the arduous labors and many brilliant successes of the cavalry arm of the Confederate service. When, after the brilliant cavalry victory at Newnan, Wheeler moved into the rear of Sherman's army, Jackson's cavalry shared in the movements that defeated Kilpatrick's raid against the Macon road. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ General Joseph Eggleston Johnston, born, 3 Feb 1807 in Farmsville,VA, died 21 Mar 1891 in District of Columbia..CAMPAIGNS: Harper's Ferry, First Bull Run, Peninsula,Yorktown, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Atlanta, Carolinas. "The Dexter Niles House,1042 Marietta St., NW is the site of the old Plantation home of Dexter Niles where General Joseph E. Johnston, Commanding the Army of Tenn., had headquarters July 10-18 1864. At trackside N., was the telegraph office in charge of Maj. Charles W. Hubner (later an Atlanta citizen). Night of [Sunday,] July 17, a Richmond telegram arrived notifying Gen. Johnston of his relief from command of the Army, naming Gen. John B. Hood as his successor. Maj. Hubner decoded the message , crossed the road, entered the house and handed the dispatch to Gen. Johnston who, with maps spread out, was instructing Col. Presstman about Atlanta defenses." From 1885 to death, Johnston served as President Grover Cleveland's commissioner of railroads, while Carl Raymond Gray was starting his 56 year railroad career, and Augustus Hill Garland of Arkansas, was U.S. Attorney General. Historian John M. Taylor recounts the postwar friendship between Union Gen. William T. Sherman and Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. When Sherman died in 1891, Johnston was a pallbearer. Because of Johnston's old age and the cold weather, a member of the party said to Johnston, "General, please put on your hat." Johnston replied, "If I were in his place, and he were here in mine, he would not put on his hat." Ten days later, Johnston himself died ~~~~~~~~~~~ General John Bell Hood, a North Georgia Notable, Born June 29, 1831, Owingsville, Kentucky, Died August 30, 1879, New Orleans. Hood was severely wounded, July 2, 1863 at Gettysburg, forever losing use of his left arm. Hood was so severely wounded September 18, 1863 at Chickamauga, that his amputated right leg was sent with him so that it could be buried with him in the result of his death.       You could say: "he gave his arm and a leg, for the cause"! July 18th broke warm and muggy; Hood was notified that he had been promoted, and assigned command of the Army of Tennessee. Confederate Adjutant General Samuel Cooper's telegram to General Hood included the directive "...be wary no less than bold." The Augusta Constitutionalist wrote on July 20, 1864, regarding Hood's replacement of Johnston, --- "If it means anything it must mean this: Atlanta will not be given up without a fight." "Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, had little faith in Johnston's ability to oppose Sherman and on July 17, 1864, Davis relieves Johnston of his command and replaces him with the aggressive John B. Hood. Hood was even more unsuccessful in stopping Sherman's armies. Finally on September 1, 1864, Sherman's troops captured the city of Atlanta, but not before Hood destroyed the railroad yards." "Hoping to save his army, Hood evacuated Atlanta on September 1, 1864, retreating through Lovejoy's Station, into rural Georgia, finally camping in Palmetto."                <>------<>-------<>                   EXTRA TID-BITS General Robert E. Lee's father was General Henry "Light-Horse" Lee.       "As the Nation mourned the death of its first President, a somber mood hung over the halls of Congress, December 26, 1799.  Slowly the former governor of that President's home state of Virginia, now a member of the House of Representatives, stood to his feet to eulogize his friend.  Little did he know the historic impact of his simple, but powerful eulogy....             "First in war, first in peace,                        first in the hearts of his countrymen." Slowly the congressman sat back down.  A war hero in his own right, former General Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee would miss his friend...George Washington (1732-1799)."                  ------------           Jefferson Davis visits Maine From July until October 1858, then-US Senator Jefferson Davis (D-MS) and his family visited the State of Maine. [They stayed and visited awhile with Oliver Crosby Gray's uncle John Kennedy, Esq., in Lincoln County.] He visited Portland, Bangor, Penobscot Bay and observed some surveying on Mount Humpback. Apparently Bowdoin College awarded Mr. Davis an honorary degree, and in 1889, he thanked Bowdoin for not removing his name from the alumni rolls. Mrs. Davis remembers the trip fondly in her memoirs. In August 1853, as Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis visited the Coast Survey site at Blue Mountain, Maine and commissioned Fort Gorges off Portland in Casco Bay. Davis was an advocate of the establishment of the Geodetic Survey Baseline that eventually wound up in Washington County. Davis visited the Baseline in his 1858 visit to Maine.       (NOTE: Knox County was created 1 Apr 1860) Adelbert Ames, born Rockland, Knox County, Maine in 1835, Provisional Governor of Mississippi 1868-69, Senator from Mississippi 1870-74, and finally Governor 1874-1876. http://www.datasync.com/~bouchard/missme.html            ---------------                        FOR MORE           Go to bottom of this site, then select:                <>-------<>-------<> File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/me/knox/military/civilwar/other/gray2mt.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/mefiles/ File size: 10.9 Kb