GENERAL WILLIAM WIRT ALLEN
General William Allen was born at Montgomery, Alabama. He was made a captain of the 1st Alabama Cavalry, and then its colonel. He was in the Kentucky campaigns, and was wounded at Perryville in 1864. He was made colonel of the 6th Alabama Cavalry Regiment, then commissioned a brigadier general. In the closing days of the war, in Georgia, North and South Carolina, he evidenced great skill as a leader. Always cheerful, patient and brave, he did much to inspirit his men, when, to his foreseeing mind, it was a hopeless fight against heaviest odds.
GENERAL ROBERT H. ANDERSON
General Robert H. Anderson, who also took a prominent part in these stirring campaigns, was born at Savannah, Georgia, in 1835. He graduated from West Point in 1857. He was on the frontier from 1857 to 1861, and was with the Georgia troops at Fort McAllister. His pluck and courage won him the command of the 5th Georgia Cavalry. After a little while, he proved himself so competent that he was advanced to a brigade commander; and, in the dark hours—from November, 1864, to April, 1865—in the closing scenes and in front of Sherman in his march to the sea, he bore a most conspicuous and valorous part.
GENERAL JOSEPH WHEELER
“Fighting Joe”
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.