|
|
|
||||||||
Brigadier General William A. Quarles, P.A.C.S.
Brigadier-General William A. Quarles, when the Forty-second Tennessee was organized in 1861, was elected and commissioned its colonel. The regiment was placed in the army of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, and in February, 1862, was quartered at Clarksville, Tenn. On the 12th of February they received orders from Brigadier General Pillow to go to Fort Donelson. The order was immediately obeyed, and going on board a transport they arrived next morning under a heavy fire. The companies were formed on the transport and marched off in regular order. In passing through the village of Dover, three men were wounded, one mortally, by the Federal shells. Then, assigned to Colonel Heiman's brigade, the regiment was thrown into the trenches. This was the introduction of these gallant men to the stern realities of war. On the 13th, 14th, and 15th of February occurred the severest fighting at Donelson. Both superiors and subordinates bore testimony to the gallantry of Colonel Quarles in the trying ordeal of this first battle. "In this attack," says Gen. Bushrod Johnson, speaking of the first assaults of the enemy, "Captain Maney's company of artillery and Colonels Abernathy's and Quarles' regiments principally suffered and deserve more particular notice." During the three days' fighting the conduct of Colonel Quarles was such that Lieut. T. McGinnis, acting adjutant of the Forty-second Tennessee, said in a note to General Buckner: "Before closing my report, I will call your attention to the cool and gallant conduct of Colonel Quarles. He was always at the head of his regiment, and set a gallant example for his officers and men." After being exchanged, Colonel Quarles was put in command of the Forty-second, Forty-sixth, Forty-eighth, and Fifty-third Tennessee regiments, consolidated, and the Ninth Tennessee battalion, and assigned to Maxey's brigade, which with other troops was under command of Gen. Frank Gardner at Port Hudson. Maxey's brigade was transferred, at the beginning of the siege of Vicksburg, from Port Hudson to the command of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston at Jackson, Miss. On August 25, 1863, Colonel Quarles was promoted to brigadier-general, at that time being under the orders of Gen. Dabney H. Maury. Quarles' brigade was sent to Bragg in anticipation of the battle of Missionary Ridge, but did not reach him in time to share in that engagement. He was ordered back to Mississippi after it seemed certain that Bragg would not be attacked again at Dalton, but was returned to Georgia on the opening of the Atlanta campaign. During the long continued conflict from Dalton to Atlanta this brigade exhibited a steady bearing. At Pickett's mill, General Cleburne expressed to General Quarles and his brigade his thanks for timely assistance rendered: "Brigadier General Quarles was severely wounded at the head of his brigade, within a short distance of the enemy's inner line, and all of his staff officers with him on the field were killed; and so heavy were the losses in his command that when the battle ended its officer highest in rank was a captain." After the war, General Quarles made his home in Clarksville, Tenn., where he died December 28, 1893.
Source: Evans, Clement, ed. Confederate Military History, Vol. XII, Confederate Publishing Company, Atlanta, GA, 1899
Return to the Tennessee Civil War Home Page