UDC erected stone marker in memory of 'Boy General' 67 years ago

John Herbert Kelly's marker in Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile, Ala.

Today – April 25 – marks 67 years from the day that a large stone marker was erected at the grave of John Herbert Kelly, the famous “Boy General of the Confederacy,” who grew up in Wilcox County.

It was on April 25, 1951 that members of the Alabama Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the General John Herbert Kelly Chapter of the UDC in Birmingham assembled at Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile for the erection of a large stone marker at Kelly’s humble gravesite.

John Herbert Kelly was born in the Pickens County town of Carrollton on March 31, 1840. Both of Kelly’s parents died when he was a boy, leaving Kelly and his brother as orphans. At that time, the two young brothers moved to Wilcox County to live with their grandparents, Col. Joseph Richard Hawthorne and Harriet Herbert Hawthorne, in the antebellum plantation home now known as the Hawthorne House at Pine Apple. John Herbert Kelly spent the next 10 years of his life in Pine Apple and, under the instruction of his grandfather, he became an expert horseman and marksman, two skills that would serve him well later as a professional soldier.

Kelly went on to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, but, like many young cadets from the South, Kelly was swept up in the Civil War, prompting him to withdraw from the prestigious college on Dec. 29, 1860. In those days, the Confederate capital was in Montgomery and, with trained military officers being in short supply, it was there that the 20-year-old Kelly offered his services to the Confederacy.

He was commissioned as a second lieutenant and was promoted to captain a short time later, before being promoted to the rank of major on Sept. 23, 1861. After serving for a time at Fort Morgan, he led an infantry regiment at the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862 and was promoted to colonel on May 5, 1862. From there, he went on to fight at the Battle of Perryville in Kentucky and the Battle of Murfreesboro in Tennessee, where he was wounded.

Perhaps his finest hour was at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863 where he “displayed great courage and skills” after having a horse shot out from under him. Kelly’s brigade lost 300 men within one hour of fierce, savage fighting, but the battle ended in a Confederate victory as Kelly’s brigade withstood three Union counterattacks at Snodgrass Hill.

Not long after that, on Nov. 16, 1863, Kelly was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. At the time of his promotion, at the age of 23, Kelly was the youngest brigadier general in the entire Confederate Army, earning him the nickname of the “Boy General of the Confederacy.”

Less than a year later, on Sept. 2, 1864, Kelly, then a 24-year-old in command of cavalry troops, was mortally wounded while leading a charge during a skirmish near the town of Franklin, Tenn. Fellow soldiers carried Kelly to the Harrison House, a plantation home just south of Franklin, where he died two days later.

Kelly was originally buried at the Harrison House, but his body was exhumed and transported back to Alabama in 1866. Today, among the thousands of graves within the historic Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile, you’ll find the grave of General John Herbert Kelly. Atop his grave sits the large stone marker that was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy on this day 67 years ago.