Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/422

Rh Judge Chilton. Being admitted to the bar in 1850 he opened his office in Montgomery. In 1855 he was a representative of that county in the Alabama legislature, and in 1860 he was an elector on the Bell and Everett ticket. He opposed secession, but when his adopted State decided upon that policy, he obeyed her voice and did all in his power to make her cause succeed. Having had experience in Mexico he was elected captain of a mounted company, and served on the Florida coast until the fall of 1861, when he increased his command to a regiment, of which he was chosen colonel. This command, known as the First Alabama cavalry, he led to Tennessee. He opened the battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862, and was also engaged in the second day's fight. At Farmington he acted as aid to General Bragg. At Booneville he led a brigade, consisting of his own and a Mississippi regiment and Maj. S. J. Murphy's battalion, and drove the enemy from the field. In the spring of 1863 Colonel Clanton raised three more regiments, the Sixth, Seventh and Ninth Alabama cavalry, and on November 13th of that year was commissioned as brigadier-general in the provisional army of the Confederate States. In 1864 he had a fierce fight with Greneral Rousseau at "Ten Islands," on the Coosa river. In this affair he lost his entire staff, Capt. Robert Abercrombie, of Florida, and Lieutenant Judkins, of Montgomery, being killed, and Captain Smith, of Dallas, and Lieutenant Hyer, of Florida, being wounded. Being ordered to Dalton, he reached there ahead of his command, and acted as aid to General Polk, at Resaca, Adairsville and Cassville. For his services in getting the artillery and stores safely across the Etowah, on the retreat from Cassville, he received the thanks of the generals of the army of Tennessee. He was subsequently placed on duty with his brigade in the department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana. Early in 1865 he relieved General Baker at Pollard, and soon afterward defeated a raiding party of the enemy. In March he was