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[Illustration: From left to right, back row--Private Thrower, Orderly
Sergeant George Little, Sergeant John Little, Bugler Minardo Rosser.
Second row, left--Lieut. Harvey Cribbs; right, Artificer William
Johnson. Front row, left--Corporal Thos. Owen, Walter Guild. Seated,
on right--Sergeant James R. Maxwell; left, Rufus Jones or "Rube,"
T. A. Dearing's servant.]




A HISTORY
_of_
LUMSDEN'S BATTERY
C. S. A.



Written by Dr. George Little
_and_
Mr. James R. Maxwell



Published by R. E. Rhodes Chapter
United Daughters of the Confederacy
Tuskaloosa, Alabama




Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Original spellings, punctuation and discrepancies have
been retained, including the list of Privates with numerous names out
of alphabetical order.




This History of Lumsden's Battery was written from memory in 1905 by
Dr. Maxwell and Dr. Little, with the help of a diary kept by Dr. James
T. Searcy.

From organization Nov. 4, 1861, to Oct. 15, 1863, this data is the work
of Dr. George Little, from Oct. 15, 1863, to its surrender May 4, 1865,
the work of Mr. James R. Maxwell.




LUMSDEN'S BATTERY

Its Organization and Services in the Army of the Confederate States.


At the close of the spring term of the Circuit Court of Tuscaloosa
County, Alabama, in May, 1861, Judge Wm. S. Mudd announced from the
bench that Mr. Harvey H. Cribbs would resign the office of Sheriff of
the County for the purpose of volunteering into the Army of the
Confederate States and would place on the desk of the Clerk of the
Court an agreement so to volunteer signed by himself, and invited all
who wished to volunteer to come forward and sign the same agreement.
Many of Tuscaloosa's young men signed the same day.

By the end of the week following the list had grown to about 200 men.
Capt. Charles L. Lumsden, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute
was commandant of Cadets at the University of Alabama and had been
contemplating the getting up of a company for service in Light or Field
Artillery and had been corresponding with the War Department and Army
officers already in service concerning the matter.

These volunteers, on learning this fact, at once offered themselves to
Capt. Lumsden as a company of such artillery.

Dr. George W. Vaughn, son of Edward Bressie Vaughn (who afterwards gave
two other younger sons to the cause) and Mr. Ebenezer H. Hargrove, also
of Tuscaloosa County, had married two Mississippi girls, sisters, the
Misses Sykes of Columbus, Mississippi, and were engaged in planting in
Lowndes County, Miss. Hearing of this Artillery Co. they sent their
names to be added to the list. Dr. George Little, Professor of
Chemistry in Oakland College, Mississippi, and his younger brother,
John Little, Principal of the Preparatory Department, resigned their
places and returned to Tuscaloosa to join this Company. Edward Tarrant,
Superintendent of Education for Tuscaloosa County, had a flourishing
educational institute called the Columbian Institute at Taylorville
four and a half miles south of Tuscaloosa. He gave up his school and
joined the Company, where two of his sons, Ed William and John F.,
afterwards followed him.

Joseph Porter Sykes, a nephew of the Sykes sisters, had been appointed
by Pres. Davis a Cadet in the regular C. S. Army and at his request was
assigned to this Company. Dr. Nicholas Perkins Marlowe and Drs. Caleb
and Wm. Toxey served as surgeons at different times and Dr. Jarretts
and McMichael and Dr. Hill also later. We mention these doctors who
entered the ranks as privates as emphasizing the spirit that was moving
the young men of the time in every trade and profession. But their
country had too crying a need of medical men, in a few weeks, to permit
them to continue to serve with arms in their hands, and all of them
were soon promoted to the service for which their education fitted
them, serving as Regimental and Brigade surgeons and high in their
profession after the close of the war. In May the election of officers
was held and resulted in election of Charles Lumsden, Captain; George
W. Vaughn, Sr., First Lieutenant; Henry H. Cribbs, Jr., First
Lieutenant; Ebenezer H. Hargrove, Sr., Second Lieutenant; Edward
Tarrant, Jr., Second Lieutenant; Joseph Porter Sykes, Cadet.

