COLONEL GEORGE C. PORTERSource: Tennessee Historical Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 3 (OCTOBER, 1919), pp. 137-141Published by: Tennessee Historical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/42637423 .

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TENNESSEE

HISTORICAL MAGAZINE

Vol. 5 OCTOBER, 1919 No. 3

COLONEL GEORGE C. PORTER.

Resolutions on the Death of Colonel Porter.

(Extract from the Minutes of the Tennessee Historical Society.)

Col. George Camp Porter, Custodian and Treasurer of the Tennessee Historical Society, died at eight o'clock P.M., on Saturday, the 20th day of September, 1919, at the Protestant Hospital in the City of Nashville.

The following day the Nashville Banner , a newspaper to which Col. Porter was a frequent and valued contributor, published the following notice of his death, and sketch of his life :

DISTINGUISHED CITIZEN DIES

Col. George C. Porter! Was Delegate to Constitutional Conven- tion of 1870 - Lawyer and Scholar -

Colonel Sixth Tennessee. Col. George C. Porter, well-known Tennessean, and a delegate to

the constitutional convention of 1870, a gallant Confederate officer, a former member of the house of representatives and the state senate, died at his residence, 2119 Hayes Street, Saturday night shortly after 8 o'clock. Col. Porter was in his 85th year and had undergone an operation only a few days ago, first reports from his bedside follow- ing the operation being that he was getting along nicely.

The remains will be conveyed to Brownsville Monday morning and burial will be Monday afternoon. He is survived by a daughter, Miss Neppie Porter.

SKETCH OF HIS LIFE. Col. George Camp Porter was born in Fayette County, Tennessee.

His father was Charles Bingley Porter, a native of Orange County, Virginia, born at the family mansion on the Rapidan, which served as Gen. Lafayette's headquarters during the revolutionary war. Col. Porter's grandfather was Charles Bingley Porter, Sr., who com- manded a Virginia infantry regiment under Gen. Washington at Yorktown, and who also defeated James Madison in a race for the legislature in Virginia.

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138 IN MEMORIAM

Col. Porter's father removed to Tennessee in 1826. His mother was Miss Mary Scott of Haywood County, who had come to Tennessee from Halifax County, Virginia. There were three children by this marriage, George C., Robert Scott and Mary Bingley Porter. Col. Porter's parents died when he was still a boy and he and his brother were reared by their uncles and aunts.

Col. Porter's first job was with a party of civil engineers who sur- veyed the L. & N. Railroad from Memphis to Paris in 1854. In the fall of that year he was sent to the Kentucky Military Institute, one of the most noted schools of the time and second only to West Point as a military academy. He graduated with thei rank of captain in 1857 with first honors, being valedictorian of his class.

Upon his graduation, Capt. Porter entered the law office of Yergen & Farrington in Memphis and there became associated with some of the most noted lawyers, politicians and literary men of the day. He secured his license to practice law in 1860 during the great political campaign which resulted in the election of Lincoln. After the be- ginning of the secession movement, in April, 1861, young Porter, with his uncle, Junius P. Howell, went to Philadelphia, where they were at the time of the fall of Ft. Sumpter and witnessed in Balti- more the shedding of the first blood of the Civil war in the clash be- tween citizens and the first Massachusetts infantry regiment.

f THE "HAYWOOD BLUES."

Capt. Porter then returned to Tennessee and at once organized in Brownsville, his old home, a company known as the "Haywood Blues," which became a part of the Sixth Tennessee regiment, having been sworn into state service May 15, 1861. Capt. Porter was elected major. All the West Tennessee troops were shortly brigaded under Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham, the Sixth Tennessee remaining under his command during the rest of the war, and having its share in Cheatham's division one of the most noted commands in the Army of Tennessee. After the battle of Shiloh, when the army was reor- ganized, Major Porter was made a colonel. Among the famous battles in which his regiment took part were Perryville, Stones River, Chick- amauga, Missionary Ridge; all of the battles under Joseph E. Johns- ton against Sherman in the retreat from Dalton to Atlanta; and the battles of Franklin and Nashville. After the battle of Nashville and the retreat from Tennessee, Col. Porter's Sixth Tennessee was trans- ferred with the remnants of the Western army to North Carolina, where it was surrendered under its old commander, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, in April, 1865.

From first to last, Col. Porter was with his own regiment. He was an active figure in all the great battles of the Army of Ten- nessee under Albert Sidney Johnston, Bragg, Joseph E. Johnston and Hood.

One of the most striking tributes to his gallantry as a soldier and a leader was paid him by the late Gov. James D. Porter, who was adjutant with the rank of colonel under Gen. Cheatham, and who was in no way related to him. When sent with an order to Col Porter, when he was standing at the head of his army, holding in check the center of Rosencrans' army, Gov. Porter said of him that had he been commanding a regiment in the army of France under Napoleon, he would have been made a marshal on the field of battle for gallant and heroic conduct.

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COLONEL GEORGE C. PORTER 139

BATTLE OP SHILOH. Another high compliment from Gov. Porter was on Col. Porter's

story of the battle of Shiloh, read before the Tennessee Historical Society and printed at Gov. Porter's request in the Banner, which Gov. Porter declared the most accurate and interesting description of that battle he had ever read and as a battle narrative second only to Hugo's description of Waterloo. The late Gen. Gates P. Thurston, who also participated in the battle of Shiloh as a Federal officer, gave the story the same high estimate.

At the close of the war Col. Pbrter returned to Brownsville, where he again entered law practice. In 1869 he was elected a member of the constitutional convention, which met in Nashville in January, 1870. Hie represented his district in the state senate in 1871 and his floterial district in the general assembly in, 1877. He also served as president of the board of railroad commissioners and property equalizers and in 1897 was appointed chief deputy in the office of Internal Revenue Collector Frank Bond in Nashville, serving until the end of President Cleveland's term. In 1903 he was appointed superintendent of the state capitol by Gov. Frazier and served till Gov. Patterson was elected.

He has served as president of the Frank Cheatham bivouac, his- torian of that body and historian of the state association of United Confederate Veterans.

Col. Porter was a man of exceptional educational attainments and a writer of ability. His history of the Tennessee infantry regiments in the Confederate army is conceded to be one of the most valuable contributions to the military history of the war between the states. It was some time ago published serially in the Banner.

Col. Porter became a Mason shortly after the war and took all of the degrees in York masonry. He attended the grand encamp- ment of Knights Templar in Nashville in 1866 and was the first man who ever drilled that body in the manuel of Templar tactics. He was a member of Cumberland Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and a member of the order of Knights of Pythias.

In 1871 he was married to Miss Mollie P. Bond, of Brownsville, who died in Nashville in 1907.

With Col. Porter's passing, the thin ranks of the gallant army of the Confederacy lose one of the most distinguished soldiers and one of the highest officers in the state of Tennessee.

This combined statement is correct as far as it undertakes to go, but it fails to mention the fact of Col. Porter's member- ship in this society, and his official connection with it, which marked his well-rounded life. To supply this essential lack, Hon. Robert Ewing, a member of this society, who, through- out Col. Porter's term of service, occupied conjointly with him this room of the society and who in this way had the op- portunity to see how efficiently Col. Porter discharged his official duties, and also how active he was in making the so- ciety helpfully instructive to the youth of the State and agree- able for all citizens to visit, contributed the following card to the Banner:

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140 IN MEMORIAM

COL. GEORGE C. PORTER. To the Editor of the Banner:

After reading in Sunday's Banner the satisfactory biographical sketch of Col. George C. Porter, who died in Nashville, Saturday night, will you allow me to add that he served the last few years of his long and honorable life as custodian and treasurer of the Ten- nessee Historical Society, of which he was one of the earliest members?

The commissioners of Watkins Institute, impressed with the fact that the society is a valuable arm of education, grants it the use of a room in the Watkins Institute building for the display and proper care of its valuable holdings, consisting of many fine portraits of the distinguished men of the state and nation, and also of rare his- torical documents and interesting relics. These could not have been placed under the care of one better fitted than Col., Porter, for no one in the state, perhaps, was better acquainted with the state's history, particularly as illustrated in the careers and characters of its great}, men. Nothing gave him more pleasure than to see to it, as far as he was able, that succeeding generations in the state kept memories of these men alive. He was peculiarly gifted with the power to describe, in a very interesting way, what these men had done to make glorious in history the name of Tennessee. Standing with him under the portraits of men like Jackson, Campbell, Catron, Haskell and many others it was really inspiring to hear him instill into the minds of the younger visitors to the society's room the importance of emulating their example and keeping the name of Tennessee, as the producer of great men, in th very front rank.

As custodian, Col. Porter always endeavored to have the monthly meetings of the society well attended, and, at the same time, ques- tions of true historical moment discussed. He spent much of his time persuading citizens over the state to entrust to the safekeeping of the society rare documents and other things of historical value which were calculated to shed needed light or instruct and interest visitors from over the state. He labored diligently for years, seeking to have the state make a suitable provision for the care and proper display of the society's holdings, advocating successfully before the society the transfer of these, in their entirety, in trust to the state, provided such provision was made.

Col. Porter enjoyed and availed himself of the opportunity of acquiring a classical as well as technical education. He continued through life to broaden this by a systematic course of reading of the books of the best authors. He kept fresh his knowledge of Latin and Latin writers. He was a close student of Shakespeare and knew by heart his greater tragedies. He was also a great admirer of the writings of Byron and Macauley and perfectly familiar with them. This familiarity, but, far more, a very keen appreciation, frequently evidenced by opportune quotations, gave an added charm to his own acceptable contributions to the historical literature! of our state.

Col. Porter was first a Christian and then a philosopher. He had no fear of death. A day or two before the operation, the extreme gravity of which he thoroughly understood, and which he hardly expected to recover, he conversed cheerfully with his friends and gave no sort of sign that he feared the result. He needed not to have done so, for he had lived as he should have done. Many will miss him.

Perhaps these two publications in themselves were suffi- cient to inform the general public of what a loss the State

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COLONEL GEORGE C. PORTER 141

had sustained by Col. Porter's death. However this may be, the members of this society, now assembled for ¿heir first meeting since Col. Porter's death, having known him so inti- mately and appreciating his extraordinary virtues as highly as they did, feel that not only should these public accounts of his life and death be spread on the society's minutes, but that they should be accompanied by a word of final farewell from them to a loved associate, who will never again sit with them. Therefore, be it

Resolved, By the Tennessee Hitorical Society, that the death of Col. Porter, though it came at a ripe age, is never- theless a serious loss to the society, because of his continued and active interest in the society while he was with us, and also his keen appreciation and full understanding of the so- ciety's high and unselfish purposes, and especially because of his efficient service as an official in making the society and its valuable historical holdings inspiringly helpful to the youth of the State, as well as a valuabe aid to al citizens of the State in acquiring a knowledge of the glorious history of Tennessee. Be it further

Resolved , That this final parting with so genial a gentle- man, such an ardent patriot, and so true and tried a friend, causes the members of the society genuinely felt sorrow. Be it further

Resolved and ordered , That the aforementioned extracts from the Nashville Bannery accompanied by these resolutions, be spread on the minutes of the society, and that a certified copy thereof be furnished by the secretary of the society to Col. Porter's devoted daughter.

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COLONEL GEORGE C. PORTER.

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