DAILY NEWS JOURNAL, GREG TUCKER, 8/11/2013
Confederate Army veteran Albert C. Everett died on Jan. 1, 1939, the 76th anniversary of the Battle of Stones River. He was one of the last five Confederate veterans living in Rutherford County. Frank Ross, Rutherford’s last Confederate veteran, died on Oct. 14, 1943, the day Gen. Douglas MacArthur announced that Allied forces had achieved “mastery of the air” in the Pacific theater of war.
Albert C. “Uncle Albert” Everett
A slave before the war, Everett joined the 51st Tennessee Infantry with Robert Everett, his master and childhood playmate, in 1861 and served for the duration. Standing scarcely 5 feet tall, Everett assumed responsibility for feeding his fellow soldiers. Quoting one of those with whom he served, the Rutherford Courier (Jan. 7, 1939) reported that “whenever they camped the little Negro would get his pots and pans together and cook for his fighting men. If there wasn’t anything to cook, Albert went out and foraged for it and usually brought it back… he could find something to eat where a squirrel couldn’t. He was the best forager in the war.” Everett also served as a battlefield medic and chaplain, doctoring the wounded and praying over the dead.
When asked about his camp cooking, Albert explained: “I feed my boys chicken and duck when I can. When the vittles was all gone, I’d go out and rustle some snake and frog. Old rattlesnake is the best meat. Snake shakes his bell and lets you know. I fed my boys snake and toad frog and they fight good.”
After the surrender at Appomattox, Everett returned to Rutherford but refused to accept that the cause was lost. He attended all the county, state and Southern veteran conventions, proudly wore his medals and spoke of the time when the South would again fight for its independence. (Everett can be seen in photographs of the 1928 and 1929 Rutherford County Confederate Veteran reunions, wearing a white shirt, dark vest and jacket.)
Among the veterans, Everett was known for his spontaneous preaching and his ability “to sing the songs which were sung around Confederate campfires,” according to the Daily News Journal (Jan. 4, 1939). “His rendition of the Rebel yell was always a part of the reunions held by the gray veterans in Rutherford County.”
In his last decade, however, Everett became “distracted” and “haunted” by delusions and war memories. “Murfreesboro knew him (then) as the old Negro who always carried a small Confederate flag and spent most of his waking hours in the courthouse yard , chanting with religious fervor of Robert E. Lee, Bedford Forrest and Jeff Davis,” according to his obituary. He would sometimes identify himself as “Jeff Davis, president of the Confederacy, still fleeing from the Yankees and disguised in a black skin.” He often napped at the base of the Confederate monument, clutching his flag, and was said to wander the Stones River battlefield some evenings, alone and waving his flag.
When his Confederate pension was no longer sufficient to pay the rent for his Murfreesboro home on “Simmons Row” (701 N. Walnut St.), Everett and his wife, Elberta, moved to the County Farm where he died. His funeral was at Key Memorial, the local church where he had often preached, and on the site where he had earlier worshipped as a slave. His age was unknown, but he claimed to be 110.
J. Frank Bryant
Born in Dayton, Tenn., on May 27, 1837, J. Frank Bryant served with the Confederate army as a teamster on a munitions train moving supplies for the soldiers. Settling in the Lascassas community after the war, he worked for the postal service carrying mail between Norene, Cainsville and Lebanon.
In his later years he farmed and took an active part in all Confederate reunions and observances. When he died on Aug. 21, 1939, at the age of 102, he was believed to have been the oldest living resident of the county. He was survived by his second wife, the former Mozella Adams, and two daughters.
Jesse Ransom Shelton
Enlisting at the age of 18, Jesse R. Shelton was ordered to report to the infantry at McMinnville, according to the Daily News Journal (May 14, 1940). But he liked riding a horse better than marching. Meeting Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry at Hoovers Gap, he became part of Forrest’s escort and rode with the cavalry on raids in West Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.
In May 1863, he participated in Forrest’s “magnificent bluff” that resulted in the capture of the “Lightning Mule Brigade” including 1640 Union soldiers and officers and prevented an attack on Rome, Ga. With only 420 men, Forrest stalked the Yankee brigade for 11 days. At the Black Warrior River the Union commander positioned artillery controlling what he thought was the only crossing, but Emma Sanson, a young Georgia girl, showed Forrest a secret ford.
Shelton was never wounded in action, but he did have a horse shot from under him near Sparta. In 1864, he was stricken with typhoid fever and was cared for by a family of Union sympathizers in Loudon.
Shelton was born on the family farm north of Beech Grove on Jan. 16, 1844. He died where he was born on May 14, 1940, at the age of 96. Married to the former Martha Jane Eaton, he was survived by three children, 15 grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild, all residents of the Hoovers Gap and Beech Grove communities.
Samuel H. Mitchell
The oldest citizen of Rutherford County, Samuel H. Mitchell was 98 at the time of his death on March 24, 1941. He was the son of a Confederate officer, Col. Addison Mitchell (a veteran of the Seminole Wars under Gen. Andrew Jackson). Avoiding his father’s command, Sam enlisted at the age of 18 in the 4th Tennessee Infantry and fought near Stones River and on Lookout Mountain.
Mitchell was with Gen. Joe E. Johnston when he surrendered to Gen. W. T. Sherman, according to the Rutherford Courier (March 25,1941), “and often related a first-hand account of that historic event.” After the war, Mitchell attended Union University in Murfreesboro and married Jennie Carney, “a member of one of the county’s most distinguished families.”
Before his retirement, Mitchell was engaged in farming and served as a director of the Stones River National Bank.
He was an active member of the Joe B. Palmer Bivouac, United Confederate Veterans, organized in Murfreesboro. He was active in local civic and political affairs, and lived at 407 E. Main St. in Murfreesboro. “A familiar figure in downtown Murfreesboro as he visited about the Square…passing jokes and pleasantries with friends. His mind remained keen and alert until his last illness.”
A long list of honorary and active pallbearers, personally selected by the old veteran, included J.B. Black, R.T. Bell, M.E. Bragg, Collier Crichlow, James Cason, Otho Cannon, Sam Cox, G.M. Darrow, David Goldstein, B.F. Gannaway, C.N. Haynes, C.B. Huggins, J.R. Jetton, B. B. Kerr, D. L. Ledbetter, Lee Lively, J.P. Leathers, M.B. Murfree, Hubert McCullough, Granville Ridley, Frank Ross, T.E. Hord, Julian Hooper, James M. Haynes, James Patterson, Leiper Freeman and C.B. Leatherman.
Frank Ross
The adult life of Frank Ross stretched from the 1861 attack on Fort Sumter to the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Admittedly uncertain as to his date of birth, Ross was believed to be near 100 when he died on Oct. 14, 1943, Rutherford County’s last Confederate veteran. Raised in Mississippi as an orphan, any records of his birth or age were lost or destroyed when the orphanage closed.
Ross was a member of the 32nd Alabama Infantry, which he referred to as “the webfoots,” under Capt. Seth Taylor and Gen. Joe E. Johnston.
He was a kettle drummer and drummed the charges at the Battle of Stones River and remembered the hasty retreat from Murfreesboro and the long winter in Tullahoma.
He also served at the battle in Mobile and fought against Sherman in Georgia. For his four years of military service he received the Southern Cross of Honor. See Daily News Journal (Oct. 14, 1943).
In his later years, Ross frequently wore his cap and coat of Confederate gray. During his last year he spent time talking with the military personnel on Tennessee maneuvers, comparing modern equipment and tactics with those of the Civil War.
Rutherford County Historian Greg Tucker can be reached at [email protected].