Brigadier General George Gibbs Dibrell,
P.A.C.S.
Brigadier General George Gibbs Dibrell was born in White county, Tenn.,
April 12, 1822. After receiving a common school education, which was
supplemented by one year at the East Tennessee university, he engaged for
a while in farming and then in mercantile pursuits. In 1861 he was elected
to the Tennessee convention as a Union delegate. But when his native
state at last decided on secession, like most of those who held similar
views, he obeyed the voice of the majority and was among the first to enlist
under the banner of the new Confederacy. He entered the service as a
private, but was elected lieutenant-colonel of his regiment receiving his
commission as such, August 10, 1861. In September of the same year he
was commissioned colonel of partisan rangers. In the reports of the
movements of Forrest's command, we find Colonel Dibrell's name favorably
mentioned on many occasions. In one of many brilliant affairs in which
Dibrell's regiment participated, Col. R. G. Ingersoll is mentioned as one of
the captives. In March, 1863, General Bragg, requested Forrest to send a
force to defend the manufacturing establishments at Tuscumbia and
Florence, Ala., against Federal raiders. Colonel Dibrell's command was
detached for this purpose, and on March 25th near Florence, he defeated
two Union gunboats and a body of raiders. During the summer campaign
of 1863, when Rosecrans was trying to maneuver Bragg out of Tennessee,
Forrest sent Dibrell to reinforce Wheeler. Near Sparta, Tenn., they had a
fierce fight with the enemy, which, after varied fortune, was finally decided
in favor of the Confederates, who chased their opponents for several miles
and then returned to camp. They found to their delight that the ladies of
Sparta had cooked and sent to the camp a fine breakfast for the entire
command. On the 26th of July 1864, Colonel Dibrell received well-merited
promotion and was commissioned brigadier-general of cavalry. He
continued to sustain his high reputation in the campaigns of Forrest and
afterward of Wheeler. Toward the close of the war he served in North
Carolina. After the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee's army he had
charge for a wile of the Confederate archives. After the long agony of war
had ended he returned to his native State. In 1870 he served in the
Tennessee constitutional convention. He was twice elected to Congress,
and served from 1875 to 1879. At Sparta, Tenn., in September, 1883,
General Dibrell's old cavalry command organized a brotherhood, officered
with members of his old regiment, the Eighth Tennessee. At their second
meeting held at Gainesboro in 1884, the following commands were added
to the organization: The Eighth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Twenty-first,
Twenty-eighth and Thirty-fifth Tennessee infantry and Colms' battalion,
Hamilton's, Bledsoe's and Bennett's battalions of cavalry. General Dibrell
commanded this "reunion brigade" up to his death in 1886, and never failed
to attend its meetings.
Source: Evans, Clement, ed. Confederate Military History, Vol.
XII, Confederate Publishing Company, Atlanta, GA, 1899
Return to the Tennessee Civil War Home
Page