This marker is a cenotaph. Hugh William Gaston was killed in action near Atlanta and buried in an unmarked grave on the battlefield. He may have been reburied in the burial ground for unknown Confederate soldiers in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta the and guarded by the Lion of Atlanta.
H. W. married Flora Jane (Buchanan) Moore on June 21, 1860.
Hugh William was working as a bookkeeper at the store run by his brother James when he was inspired to volunteer, leaving behind a bride of less than a year who was pregnant with their first child, whom he may have never seen, she died so young.
He was mustered into service at Pittsboro, Calhoun, Mississippi, in May 1861 as 2nd Lt. of James R. M. Duberry's Company, known as the Calhoun Avengers, of Blythe's 1st Mississippi Battalion (State Troops).
He was mustered into Confederate service, August 8, 1861, at New Madrid, Missouri, as Blythe's Battalion was being enlarged into Blythe's Mississippi Regiment.
After the death of Colonel Blythe and two other field officers in the battle of Shiloh, the regiment was eventually reorganized in June 1863 into the 44th Mississippi Regiment. The Calhoun Avengers were Company C.
Blythe's Mississippi Regiment took heavy casualties at Shiloh and H. W. likely wounded. Out of 107 total enlisted men and officers the company lost 40 men. He was apparently furloughed from the home camp at Corinth back to Benela, 90 miles away, as his son and only surviving child was born 10 months after the battle at Shiloh.
He returned to his regiment, which took part in a long campaign of many bloody, grueling battles under a succession of commanders. At an unknown time, he became Captain of the Calhoun Avengers. A family story holds that when the company was sent to the defense of Atlanta, his wife made the hazardous journey from Benela to Atlanta at his request to allow him to meet his year old son, the only time he would ever see the child.
On Aug. 4, 1864, he was declared killed in action, near Atlanta. August 4 was the date of the declaration of death, not necessarily the actual date of death. He was almost certainly killed on July 28, 1864, during the Battle of Ezra Church. (A week is actually pretty quick for a declaration under the circumstances, with the dead of his regiment having been left on the battlefield for the enemy to bury in mass graves. In such circumstances, time must be allowed for exchange of prisoner information and any information that the army left in control of the battlefield may have gathered about those they buried. The dead of the victorious got buried individually and carefully noted, the bones of the defeated were later gathered to be buried in mass memorial burials or are lost forever under the sprawl of metropolitan Atlanta.) There has been a suggestion in some old family correspondence that he died in a field hospital but there was no basis given for this supposition and it would be odd that an officer would not be better accounted for in such a case.
It is recorded that the 44th Mississippi, the regiment in which his company served, suffered heavy casualties as the result of being positioned by the brigade commander, Sharp, at the right end of the brigade formation, where they were exposed to enfilading enemy fire for a sustained period of time while assaulting an entrenched Union line. In the book "The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta," By Earl J. Hess, it was said "the 44th Mississippi had suffered enormously from the raging enfilade fire delivered by the 55th Illinois." Casualties on the left side of the line were described as comparatively light. The Confederates pulled back, leaving many dead behind to be buried in unmarked graves by their enemies. The book says "When they fell back, 'a line of battle of dead Rebles [sic] lay before us stiff and dead,' according to William McCulloch Newell." Capt. Hugh William Gaston was no more than 24 at the time and left behind a young widow and a toddler.
On June 19, 1902, The Calhoun Monitor, a newspaper from his home county of Calhoun, Mississippi, in noting a reunion of soldiers from the Calhoun Avengers, stated that not 1 in 12 who had originally joined came back uninjured. (Another resource stated that only 1 in 5 returned at all.) It went on to say "Leonidas and his Spartan band deserved no more praise than did Capt. Gaston and his noble boys."
Men of his line both before and after have fought for the patriotic causes of their time, from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror. While many may debate the causes of the war in which he fought, and the reasons why men like him decided to fight, it must be said that he did what he felt what his duty with courage and fortitude.
H. W. married Flora Jane (Buchanan) Moore on June 21, 1860.
Hugh William was working as a bookkeeper at the store run by his brother James when he was inspired to volunteer, leaving behind a bride of less than a year who was pregnant with their first child, whom he may have never seen, she died so young.
He was mustered into service at Pittsboro, Calhoun, Mississippi, in May 1861 as 2nd Lt. of James R. M. Duberry's Company, known as the Calhoun Avengers, of Blythe's 1st Mississippi Battalion (State Troops).
He was mustered into Confederate service, August 8, 1861, at New Madrid, Missouri, as Blythe's Battalion was being enlarged into Blythe's Mississippi Regiment.
After the death of Colonel Blythe and two other field officers in the battle of Shiloh, the regiment was eventually reorganized in June 1863 into the 44th Mississippi Regiment. The Calhoun Avengers were Company C.
Blythe's Mississippi Regiment took heavy casualties at Shiloh and H. W. likely wounded. Out of 107 total enlisted men and officers the company lost 40 men. He was apparently furloughed from the home camp at Corinth back to Benela, 90 miles away, as his son and only surviving child was born 10 months after the battle at Shiloh.
He returned to his regiment, which took part in a long campaign of many bloody, grueling battles under a succession of commanders. At an unknown time, he became Captain of the Calhoun Avengers. A family story holds that when the company was sent to the defense of Atlanta, his wife made the hazardous journey from Benela to Atlanta at his request to allow him to meet his year old son, the only time he would ever see the child.
On Aug. 4, 1864, he was declared killed in action, near Atlanta. August 4 was the date of the declaration of death, not necessarily the actual date of death. He was almost certainly killed on July 28, 1864, during the Battle of Ezra Church. (A week is actually pretty quick for a declaration under the circumstances, with the dead of his regiment having been left on the battlefield for the enemy to bury in mass graves. In such circumstances, time must be allowed for exchange of prisoner information and any information that the army left in control of the battlefield may have gathered about those they buried. The dead of the victorious got buried individually and carefully noted, the bones of the defeated were later gathered to be buried in mass memorial burials or are lost forever under the sprawl of metropolitan Atlanta.) There has been a suggestion in some old family correspondence that he died in a field hospital but there was no basis given for this supposition and it would be odd that an officer would not be better accounted for in such a case.
It is recorded that the 44th Mississippi, the regiment in which his company served, suffered heavy casualties as the result of being positioned by the brigade commander, Sharp, at the right end of the brigade formation, where they were exposed to enfilading enemy fire for a sustained period of time while assaulting an entrenched Union line. In the book "The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta," By Earl J. Hess, it was said "the 44th Mississippi had suffered enormously from the raging enfilade fire delivered by the 55th Illinois." Casualties on the left side of the line were described as comparatively light. The Confederates pulled back, leaving many dead behind to be buried in unmarked graves by their enemies. The book says "When they fell back, 'a line of battle of dead Rebles [sic] lay before us stiff and dead,' according to William McCulloch Newell." Capt. Hugh William Gaston was no more than 24 at the time and left behind a young widow and a toddler.
On June 19, 1902, The Calhoun Monitor, a newspaper from his home county of Calhoun, Mississippi, in noting a reunion of soldiers from the Calhoun Avengers, stated that not 1 in 12 who had originally joined came back uninjured. (Another resource stated that only 1 in 5 returned at all.) It went on to say "Leonidas and his Spartan band deserved no more praise than did Capt. Gaston and his noble boys."
Men of his line both before and after have fought for the patriotic causes of their time, from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror. While many may debate the causes of the war in which he fought, and the reasons why men like him decided to fight, it must be said that he did what he felt what his duty with courage and fortitude.
This marker is a cenotaph. Hugh William Gaston was killed in action near Atlanta and buried in an unmarked grave on the battlefield. He may have been reburied in the burial ground for unknown Confederate soldiers in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta the and guarded by the Lion of Atlanta.
H. W. married Flora Jane (Buchanan) Moore on June 21, 1860.
Hugh William was working as a bookkeeper at the store run by his brother James when he was inspired to volunteer, leaving behind a bride of less than a year who was pregnant with their first child, whom he may have never seen, she died so young.
He was mustered into service at Pittsboro, Calhoun, Mississippi, in May 1861 as 2nd Lt. of James R. M. Duberry's Company, known as the Calhoun Avengers, of Blythe's 1st Mississippi Battalion (State Troops).
He was mustered into Confederate service, August 8, 1861, at New Madrid, Missouri, as Blythe's Battalion was being enlarged into Blythe's Mississippi Regiment.
After the death of Colonel Blythe and two other field officers in the battle of Shiloh, the regiment was eventually reorganized in June 1863 into the 44th Mississippi Regiment. The Calhoun Avengers were Company C.
Blythe's Mississippi Regiment took heavy casualties at Shiloh and H. W. likely wounded. Out of 107 total enlisted men and officers the company lost 40 men. He was apparently furloughed from the home camp at Corinth back to Benela, 90 miles away, as his son and only surviving child was born 10 months after the battle at Shiloh.
He returned to his regiment, which took part in a long campaign of many bloody, grueling battles under a succession of commanders. At an unknown time, he became Captain of the Calhoun Avengers. A family story holds that when the company was sent to the defense of Atlanta, his wife made the hazardous journey from Benela to Atlanta at his request to allow him to meet his year old son, the only time he would ever see the child.
On Aug. 4, 1864, he was declared killed in action, near Atlanta. August 4 was the date of the declaration of death, not necessarily the actual date of death. He was almost certainly killed on July 28, 1864, during the Battle of Ezra Church. (A week is actually pretty quick for a declaration under the circumstances, with the dead of his regiment having been left on the battlefield for the enemy to bury in mass graves. In such circumstances, time must be allowed for exchange of prisoner information and any information that the army left in control of the battlefield may have gathered about those they buried. The dead of the victorious got buried individually and carefully noted, the bones of the defeated were later gathered to be buried in mass memorial burials or are lost forever under the sprawl of metropolitan Atlanta.) There has been a suggestion in some old family correspondence that he died in a field hospital but there was no basis given for this supposition and it would be odd that an officer would not be better accounted for in such a case.
It is recorded that the 44th Mississippi, the regiment in which his company served, suffered heavy casualties as the result of being positioned by the brigade commander, Sharp, at the right end of the brigade formation, where they were exposed to enfilading enemy fire for a sustained period of time while assaulting an entrenched Union line. In the book "The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta," By Earl J. Hess, it was said "the 44th Mississippi had suffered enormously from the raging enfilade fire delivered by the 55th Illinois." Casualties on the left side of the line were described as comparatively light. The Confederates pulled back, leaving many dead behind to be buried in unmarked graves by their enemies. The book says "When they fell back, 'a line of battle of dead Rebles [sic] lay before us stiff and dead,' according to William McCulloch Newell." Capt. Hugh William Gaston was no more than 24 at the time and left behind a young widow and a toddler.
On June 19, 1902, The Calhoun Monitor, a newspaper from his home county of Calhoun, Mississippi, in noting a reunion of soldiers from the Calhoun Avengers, stated that not 1 in 12 who had originally joined came back uninjured. (Another resource stated that only 1 in 5 returned at all.) It went on to say "Leonidas and his Spartan band deserved no more praise than did Capt. Gaston and his noble boys."
Men of his line both before and after have fought for the patriotic causes of their time, from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror. While many may debate the causes of the war in which he fought, and the reasons why men like him decided to fight, it must be said that he did what he felt what his duty with courage and fortitude.
H. W. married Flora Jane (Buchanan) Moore on June 21, 1860.
Hugh William was working as a bookkeeper at the store run by his brother James when he was inspired to volunteer, leaving behind a bride of less than a year who was pregnant with their first child, whom he may have never seen, she died so young.
He was mustered into service at Pittsboro, Calhoun, Mississippi, in May 1861 as 2nd Lt. of James R. M. Duberry's Company, known as the Calhoun Avengers, of Blythe's 1st Mississippi Battalion (State Troops).
He was mustered into Confederate service, August 8, 1861, at New Madrid, Missouri, as Blythe's Battalion was being enlarged into Blythe's Mississippi Regiment.
After the death of Colonel Blythe and two other field officers in the battle of Shiloh, the regiment was eventually reorganized in June 1863 into the 44th Mississippi Regiment. The Calhoun Avengers were Company C.
Blythe's Mississippi Regiment took heavy casualties at Shiloh and H. W. likely wounded. Out of 107 total enlisted men and officers the company lost 40 men. He was apparently furloughed from the home camp at Corinth back to Benela, 90 miles away, as his son and only surviving child was born 10 months after the battle at Shiloh.
He returned to his regiment, which took part in a long campaign of many bloody, grueling battles under a succession of commanders. At an unknown time, he became Captain of the Calhoun Avengers. A family story holds that when the company was sent to the defense of Atlanta, his wife made the hazardous journey from Benela to Atlanta at his request to allow him to meet his year old son, the only time he would ever see the child.
On Aug. 4, 1864, he was declared killed in action, near Atlanta. August 4 was the date of the declaration of death, not necessarily the actual date of death. He was almost certainly killed on July 28, 1864, during the Battle of Ezra Church. (A week is actually pretty quick for a declaration under the circumstances, with the dead of his regiment having been left on the battlefield for the enemy to bury in mass graves. In such circumstances, time must be allowed for exchange of prisoner information and any information that the army left in control of the battlefield may have gathered about those they buried. The dead of the victorious got buried individually and carefully noted, the bones of the defeated were later gathered to be buried in mass memorial burials or are lost forever under the sprawl of metropolitan Atlanta.) There has been a suggestion in some old family correspondence that he died in a field hospital but there was no basis given for this supposition and it would be odd that an officer would not be better accounted for in such a case.
It is recorded that the 44th Mississippi, the regiment in which his company served, suffered heavy casualties as the result of being positioned by the brigade commander, Sharp, at the right end of the brigade formation, where they were exposed to enfilading enemy fire for a sustained period of time while assaulting an entrenched Union line. In the book "The Battle of Ezra Church and the Struggle for Atlanta," By Earl J. Hess, it was said "the 44th Mississippi had suffered enormously from the raging enfilade fire delivered by the 55th Illinois." Casualties on the left side of the line were described as comparatively light. The Confederates pulled back, leaving many dead behind to be buried in unmarked graves by their enemies. The book says "When they fell back, 'a line of battle of dead Rebles [sic] lay before us stiff and dead,' according to William McCulloch Newell." Capt. Hugh William Gaston was no more than 24 at the time and left behind a young widow and a toddler.
On June 19, 1902, The Calhoun Monitor, a newspaper from his home county of Calhoun, Mississippi, in noting a reunion of soldiers from the Calhoun Avengers, stated that not 1 in 12 who had originally joined came back uninjured. (Another resource stated that only 1 in 5 returned at all.) It went on to say "Leonidas and his Spartan band deserved no more praise than did Capt. Gaston and his noble boys."
Men of his line both before and after have fought for the patriotic causes of their time, from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror. While many may debate the causes of the war in which he fought, and the reasons why men like him decided to fight, it must be said that he did what he felt what his duty with courage and fortitude.
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