Kentucky’s Civil War leaders…
Twice wounded, Brig. Gen. Gholson
was fiery advocate for states rights

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 29th in a series about Kentucky’s officers and battle leaders during the Civil War.)

Confederate Brig. Gen. Samuel J. Gholson was a fiery advocate for states rights who served as a U.S. representative from Mississippi and a U.S. federal judge prior to the Civil War.

A native of Madison County, he moved with his father to Franklin County, Ala., in 1817. He read law in Alabama and was admitted to the bar there in 1829 before moving to Athens, Miss., the following year. He served as member of the state House of Representatives in 1835, 1836 and 1839.

Gholson served as a federal judge for 22 years and became a strong advocate for secession. While on the bench, he was a lieutenant in the Mississippi State Militia in 1846 until his resignation in1861 when Mississippi seceded from the Union. He served as a member of the state secession convention in 1861 and voted for the ordinance of secession.

The Kentucky native enlisted as a private in the Monroe Volunteers, which became Company I, 14th Mississippi Infantry. He served from 1861-63 in the state troops, rising successively through the ranks to captain, colonel and then to brigadier general. During the Battle of Fort Donelson in Tennessee, he was badly wounded by a bullet that passed through his right lung. He was among the thousands of troops who were surrendered to the Union forces under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, but after his exchange, Gholson returned to active duty and fought at Iuka and then at Corinth, both in Mississippi.

By mid-1863, Gholson held the rank of major general of Mississippi State Troops and was awarded the grade of brigadier general in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States in 1864. He was placed in command of a brigade of cavalry attached to the division of Brig. Gen. James Chalmers under Maj. Gen. Nathan B. Forrest. While serving in the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana, Gholson was severely wounded in a fight with Union cavalry in December 1864 at Egypt, Miss. His left arm had to be amputated, ending his combat duty for the duration of the war.

After the war, Gholson was again a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1865, 1866 and 1878, serving as Speaker of the House from 1865–67. He opposed the government’s controversial Reconstruction policies, a political move that eventually cost him his position. After leaving the state legislature, he continued the practice of law in Aberdeen, Miss. Gholson died in Aberdeen in 1883 and was buried in the town’s Odd Fellows Cemetery.