40th Georgia Volunteer Infantry
Captain John Middlebrooks
This article from the Augusta Daily Constitutionalist on August 28, 1866 lists Confederate officers at Johnson’s Island Prison on Lake Erie who were Freemasons. John Middlebrooks was the captain of the Paulding Washington Guards in the 40th Georgia. He was captured in the Battle of Champions Hill on May 16, 1863 and died as a prisoner at Johnson’s Island of typhoid fever and is buried there in grave #106. In the 1860 census, John Middlebrooks was a 29-year-old doctor living in Paulding County with a wife, Rhoda, and a one-month-old daughter.
Major Raleigh Spinks Camp
Raleigh Camp wrote a memoir entitled the History of the 40th Georgia in the Vicksburg Campaign. Because of his unexpected death in 1867, the transcript was never published until the 1996 edition of Civil War Regiments: A Journal of the American Civil War.
Major Camp was writing this letter (to the right) from Camp Van Dorn. Founding Member Gary Goodson was instrumental in having this historical marker erected.
Major Camp wrote this letter transcribed below to his brother Thomas Lumpkin Camp and wife Mary. His focus was on the pneumonia and measles sweeping through the ranks of the 40th Georgia. Raleigh’s brother, William Brooks Camp, would join the 40th Georgia on May 15, 1862, only to die of measles six weeks from enlistment.
Knoxville, Tenn. 4th April 1862
Dear Brother & Sister,
As I will not get to make you another visit as I so much wished, I will substitute a letter, the only alternative I have to chat with you. My health is very good indeed; [I] am improving rapidly [from my wound] and hope to soon be myself again …
There is a good deal of sickness in our Regiment, now at least 100 on the sick list. One from Floyd County died Monday and two this evening, one from Gordon and one from Paulding, the latter by the name of Jos Cole. In one short week, three stout men have died. Pneumonia is the disease that cuts them off so quick. Lewis Camp has it but was back and will be up soon I think.
I have seen so much in the last six months that it does not surprise me at all. I expect men to sicken and die in camps. More die, by far, than are killed by the enemy. Many of the men are scared, but, poor fellows, they have seen but little yet. They do not see the future before them and how wise God is to conceal it from us …
I suppose William will be here by the time you get this. His stay will be short, and I now see that it will be best for him to stay at home as long as possible. Measles and other camp diseases would be a great risk for him, and his family needs him worse than he is aware. .
Kiss all the children for me, and write me soon and often. And may the Lord bless us all.
Goodbye, Raleigh
1st Lieutenant James Whitney Wofford, Jr., Company I, (1831 – 1864)
Wofford is listed as a farmer of some prominence living near Cassville in the federal census of 1860. He enlisted as a 2nd Lieutenant but was soon made the 1st Lieutenant of the “Bartow Rangers.” Lt. Wofford was killed at the Battle of Kennesaw, June 27, 1864. He is buried at Wofford Crossroads Baptist in Bartow County.
Marcus A. Perryman (1830-1862) of the Haralson Invincibles
Member Jonathan Perryman has been open with me about how Gary Goodson’s book, Georgia Confederate 7,000, led him to a passionate pursual of his family’s history. I asked Jonathan to write a bit about what he has discovered about his ancestors Marcus and Sarah Perryman of Buchanan in Northwest Georgia. Marcus was the 1st Sergeant of Company K, the Haralson Invincibles, of the 40th Georgia. Jonathan has for many years maintained the family cemetery in Haralson Cemetery. A stone-sided grave was originally erected there in 1883 on Perryman land near the Tallapoosa River. Through the years Jonathan has added markers to the site in tribute to Marcus Perryman.
According to 1860 Georgia Census Marcus was born in Georgia in 1830 and his family moved to Northwest GA after the Cherokee Indian Removal of 1838. He accumulated vast land holdings of over 10,000 acres farmed entirely with non-slave labor including many free-black men and women.
Marcus mustered locally into the Army of Tennessee March 3, 1862 and was elected First Sergeant by his peers.
After training at Fort McDonald, Big Shanty, GA he marched into Tennessee with the 40th GA and was promptly wounded in an early skirmish near Chattanooga.
His injuries were apparently minor, and his Regiment moved to Knoxville, TN to prepare for the subsequent Invasion of Kentucky in the early Fall of 1862. After the long march back to East TN Marcus ( and many in his ranks) contracted German Measles and died at age 32 on Nov. 15, 1862 and was buried somewhere near Lenoir Station, TN (below Knoxville).
He served the Confederate Army proudly, even if only for 8 months.
He was my Great, Great Grandfather but the true hero of our family was his devoted wife Sarah Elizabeth who lovingly raised their four sons on her own (never remarried) without the benefit of a Confederate Pension or outside financial assistance from anyone.
She ran the family farm until her death in 1883 and gave the farm and land equally to her four sons, one of whom was my Great Grandfather William Virgil Perryman who worked the land until his death in 1917.
Note that Marcus was included on Sarah’s gravestone placed in 1883 in The Perryman—-Brannon Cemetery, land donated to the community with the simple guideline of “lots not to be sold” as a proud lasting legacy to Marcus A. Perryman.
RIP Gr., Gr., Granddaddy. Submitted by Jonathan Perryman
Donald Bain (1847-1931)
Donald Bain was a member of the Haralson Invincibles. His 1909 murder trial brought front-page coverage in Atlanta newspapers. This article by Cliff Roberts appeared in the Summer 2021 issue of Georgia Backroads.
Captain Joseph Lockhart Neel (1826-1909)
Captain Joseph Lockhart Neel, Company H, 40th Georgia Infantry organized the Veach Guard in Adairsville. Neel was wounded at Vicksburg, Atlanta, & Bentonville and finished the war in a Greensboro hospital. Born in Jefferson County, Alabama, he was a merchant in Cassville before the war. Captain Neel is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Cartersville.
Pvt. Thomas Monroe Green (1839-1892)
Thomas Green enlisted in Captain Neel’s company (company H) in Adairsville on April 29, 1862. He was wounded in the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou near Vicksburg in late December 1862. His last surviving service record is in June 1864. Thomas returned to marry Sarah Terrell in Bartow County on Christmas Eve 1865. They would have five children together.
Thomas Green is buried in Hayes Cemetery in Adairsville.