Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/410

Rh his services to Gov. Henry A. Wise, receiving in answer the message, "Virginia can defend herself." The State of Alabama immediately began the organization of the "Alabama Volunteer Corps," to consist of ten regiments. But two were actually formed, the First, with headquarters at Mobile, and the Second, at Montgomery. The Tuskegee light infantry was assigned to the Second regiment, of which Tennent Lomax was elected colonel, Cullen A. Battle, lieutenant-colonel, and Samuel Marks, major. On January 8, 1861, by order of Gov. A. B. Moore, the First regiment was sent against Fort Morgan and the Mount Vernon arsenal, and at the same time the Second regiment was ordered to report at Pensacola to General Chase, commander of Florida troops, and participated in the seizure of the Warrington navy yards and the forts on the Florida coast. The Second regiment captured the navy yard, and Forts Barrancas and McRae on January 10th and 11th, and soon afterward General Chase, Colonel Lomax and Lieutenant-Colonel Battle telegraphed to Senator Jefferson Davis, at Washington, for advice as to the propriety of an attack upon Fort Pickens, and received the reply : "In the present condition of affairs Pickens is not worth one drop of blood." Not long after this the Alabama legislature passed the ordinance of secession, and at the same time annulled all military commissions previously issued above the rank of captain. Lomax and Battle immediately shouldered muskets and served as privates until the Confederacy was formed; and the station at Barrancas was taken by the First Alabama regiment of twelve-months' men, under Col. Henry D. Clayton, a command which included among its privates James L. Pugh, since United States senator. The Third Alabama regiment was at once organized from the companies which had served at Mobile and Pensacola, and its officers elected were Jones M. Withers, of Mobile, colonel; Tennent Lomax, of Montgomery, lieutenant-colonel, and Cullen A. Battle, of Tuskegee, major. The Second