John C. Brown

75

John C. Brown : biography

January 6, 1827 – August 17, 1889

Brown fell ill in the Summer of 1889, and traveled to Red Boiling Springs, a mineral springs resort in north-central Tennessee, in hopes of recovering. On August 17, 1889, however, he suffered a stomach hemorrhage and died. His body was returned to Pulaski and interred in the city’s Maplewood Cemetery.

Early life

Brown was born in Giles County, Tennessee, the son of Duncan and Margaret Smith Brown. He was the younger brother of Neill S. Brown, who served as governor of Tennessee in the late 1840s. John graduated from Jackson College in Columbia, Tennessee, in 1846., Tennessee State Library and Archives, website, 2007. Retrieved: 31 October 2012. He studied law with his uncle, Hugh Brown, in Spring Hill, and was admitted to the bar in 1848. He began practicing law in Pulaski that same year.Phillip Langsdon, Tennessee: A Political History (Franklin, Tenn.: Hillsboro Press, 2000), pp. 193-195.

Like his brother, Brown was a Whig prior to the Civil War, and following the Whig Party’s collapse in the mid-1850s, he continued to support former Whig candidates. During the presidential election of 1860, he served as an elector for the Constitution Union Party candidate John Bell, who opposed secession, and took a neutral stance on the issue of slavery. In the weeks following the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861, however, secessionist sentiment swept across Middle Tennessee, and Brown, along with his brother and, eventually, John Bell, switched sides and supported the burgeoning Confederacy.Oliver Perry Temple, East Tennessee and the Civil War (Johnson City, Tenn.: Overmountain Press, 1995), pp. 221-229.

Family

Brown’s first wife, Anne Pointer, died in 1858. They had no children. He married his second wife, Elizabeth Childress of Murfreesboro, in 1864. They had four children: Marie, Daisy, Elizabeth, and John C. Brown, Jr.Annie Somers Gilchrist, (Nashville: McQuiddy Printing Company, 1902), p. 15. Brown’s wife, Elizabeth, was among the women featured in Annie Somers Gilchrist’s 1902 book, Some Representative Women of Tennessee. The Browns’ daughter, Marie, was married to Governor Benton McMillin.

Civil War

In May 1861, Brown enlisted as a private in the Confederate infantry, and was elected Colonel of the 3rd Tennessee Infantry shortly afterward. He was later placed in charge of a brigade consisting of three Tennessee regiments.

Following the surrender of Fort Donelson, he was held as a prisoner of war for six months in Fort Warren, Massachusetts, before being exchanged in August 1862. Soon afterwards, he was promoted to brigadier general by the Confederate War Department and assigned command of a new and larger brigade composed of troops from Florida and Mississippi. He took part in Braxton Bragg’s campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee in late 1862 through 1863. Brown was wounded in the battles of Perryville and Chickamauga while leading his brigade. His men were a part of the defensive line on Missionary Ridge in 1863.

In 1864, Brown fought in the Atlanta Campaign, at various times temporarily commanding a division. In August, he was promoted to major general and formally assigned command of a division in Benjamin F. Cheatham’s Corps. He was again wounded at Battle of Franklin in 1864, where six of his fellow generals were killed. He was incapacitated for several months and did not rejoin the army until the end of the Carolinas Campaign in April 1865. He surrendered with Joseph E. Johnston’s forces at Bennett Place and was paroled a month later.

Dates of Rank

  • Private: May 1, 1861
  • Colonel: May 16, 1861
  • Brigadier General: August 30, 1862
  • Major General: August 4, 1864