Carnot Posey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carnot Posey (August 5, 1818 – November 13, 1863) was a Mississippi planter and lawyer, and a Confederate general in the American Civil War. He was mortally wounded at the Battle of Bristoe Station, dying from infection.
Carnot Posey was born near Woodville, Mississippi, the fourth of eight children of planter John Brooke Posey and Elizabeth Screven Posey. He attended the common schools and then graduated from college in Jackson, Mississippi, before studying law at the University of Virginia. He returned to his family's plantation and later established a law practice in Woodville. He married Mary Collins in May 1840 and they had two sons. However, Mary Posey died four years later.
When the Mexican-American War erupted, Posey enrolled as a first lieutenant in the 1st Mississippi Rifles, a volunteer regiment commanded by future Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Posey fought at the Battle of Buena Vista, where he was wounded.
Returning to Woodville after the war, Posey married Jane White in February 1849. They would eventually have six children of their own. U.S. President James Buchanan appointed Posey as the district attorney for southern Mississippi, a post he held when the state seceded from the Union.
Posey recruited a local militia company, the Wilkinson Rifles, and enlisted them into Confederate service. They became part of the 16th Mississippi, with Posey being selected as the regiment's first colonel on June 4, 1861. Not long afterward, Posey saw his first action of the war in a skirmish near Corinth, Mississippi. He and his men were shipped to the Eastern Theater, where they fought at the First Battle of Manassas in July and at Ball's Bluff in October.
Posey was wounded at the Battle of Cross Keys during Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign in June 1862. He returned to field duty as the temporary commander of the brigade of fellow Mississippian Winfield S. Featherston during the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Maryland Campaign. Posey was promoted to brigadier general on November 1, 1862, an appointment confirmed by the First Confederate Congress on April 22, 1863. Posey's Brigade of four Mississippi infantry regiments fought at Fredericksburg, successfully repelling a Union attack.
The following May, Posey's performance during the Battle of Chancellorsville drew critical praise from his superiors in their official reports of the battle. During the Battle of Gettysburg in July, Posey's Brigade was held in reserve for much of the fighting.
During the fall campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia, Posey was wounded in the left thigh by a shell fragment at Bristoe Station on October 14, 1863. He was initially taken to Culpeper Court House for medical treatment. In an era with limited understanding of germs, infection soon set in. After a month's struggle to live, Posey died at the home of a friend, Dr. John Davis, in Charlottesville, Virginia, in November. Posey was buried in the Davis family plot in the cemetery of the University of Virginia.
The Carnot Posey Lodge #378 of the Masons was founded in 1875 and named in his memory.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the public domain Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography.
- Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959, ISBN 0-8071-0823-5.
