GENERAL JOHN H. KELLEY
General John H. Kelley was born in Pickens County, Alabama, in 1840. At the age of seventeen, he entered West Point. Within a few months of his graduation, Alabama seceded, and he went to Montgomery, enlisted in the government service and became second lieutenant in the regular army. He was sent to Fort Morgan; and, in October, 1861, became aide to General Hardee, with the rank of captain and assistant adjutant general. Later, he was made major, in command of an Arkansas battalion. Fearless, enterprising and courageous, he was promoted to colonel of the 8th Arkansas Regiment. He was then just twenty-two years of age. Conspicuous at Perryville, Murfreesboro and at the Battle of Chickamauga, he became commander of a brigade of infantry, under General Buckner. At Chickamauga, his brigade suffered a loss of three hundred men out of eight hundred and seventy-six. His great merit was recognized; and, on the 16th of November, 1863, he was made brigadier general, when only twenty-three and one-half years old. Almost immediately, he was assigned to the duties of major general. At the beginning of the Georgia campaign, he became one of the division commanders, under General Wheeler. His division was composed of Allen’s, Dibrell’s and Hannon’s brigades. He was doomed to die just one month after this raid, at Franklin, Tennessee,—a spot three months afterward consecrated by the sublime heroism of the Army of the Tennessee, in its last great call to duty, where it met practical annihilation.