Brothers John L. HORTON (age 24) and James R. HORTON (age 19) enrolled as Privates in Captain Philip Holcomb's "Tippah Tigers" from Tippah County, Mississippi on 24 AUG 1861. This company was transferred into Confederate service as Company C, 23rd Mississippi Infantry on 19 SEP 1861. These two men were sons of Raleigh C. and Rachelle Colwell HORTON who owned farm land in the northeast corner of Tippah County and were members of the Providence Baptist Church. My great grandfather, William Morris HORTON, was a younger brother to these two men.
The Compiled Military Service Record for James R. HORTON contains conflicting entries. A record card showing the name "J. R. HORTON" states that he died at Hopkinsville, Kentucky on 26 OCT 1861. A second record card in the same CMSR states that "J. M. HORTON" died at Clarksville, Tennessee on 26 OCT 1861. The “M” used as a middle initial on this second record has a War Department archivist’s “x” over it indicating that they could not find another record under the name “J. M. HORTON” in their 23rd Mississippi files and were placing this entry in James R. HORTON’s file. A final record copied from an 1863 Confederate headquarters "Register of Officers and Soldiers killed in battle or who died of wounds or disease" shows that Private J. R. HORTON, Company C, 23rd Mississippi Infantry died of disease on 26 OCT 1861 at Clarksville, Tennessee. His effects were returned to the family on 16 JAN 1863.
I corresponded in 2003 with Randy Rubel, a member of the Frank P. Gracey Camp #225 of the Tennessee SCV in Clarksville. Randy, a past commander of the camp, was serving as Camp Historian and had done much research on the Confederate dead buried in the early war years at Clarksville. He confirmed that a local girl named Blanche Lewis had helped nurse the sick Confederates in 1861 and kept a record of men who had died in her care. Blanche entered the name James R. HORTON in her notebook as a member of Company C, 23rd Mississippi Infantry who died of disease in her care on 26 OCT 1861.
According to Randy, the Confederate graves went unmarked and unremembered in Clarksville until 1897 when a partial collapse of ground near the Clarksville Female Academy revealed the skeletal remains of 127 Confederate soldiers. These were reinterred in a special section of the Riverview Cemetery in Clarksville. Based upon two contemporary lists of Confederate dead, many more Confederate remains are stilled interred under the Confederate Soldier’s Memorial Bridge in Clarksville. Randy was unable to tell me whether James was among the 127 found in 1897 and reburied in Riverview, or remains buried with his comrades under the Memorial Bridge.
Brother John L. HORTON died of disease one week earlier on 19 OCT 1861 at Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Thanks to a cemetery list found in an old desk drawer in 1899, his grave has been tentatively identified and marked by the local SCV in Hopkinsville. Larry Walston of the Jefferson Davis Birthplace Camp #1675, Hopkinsville, Kentucky was the source of this information.
The HORTON family erected memorial headstones in Providence Baptist Church cemetery after the war for both John and James. Some family historians have assumed that their remains were recovered and brought home to Tippah County. However, I am convinced that these are memorial stones only and that the boys are buried where they died in Clarksville and Hopkinsville.
James – if your “J. M. HORTON” was a member of this Tippah County family group, please contact me at HeyHugh@rhsresearch.com. I would like to exchange information with you.
Hugh Simmons