Major General Henry DeLamar Clayton

Major-General Henry DeLamar Clayton was born in Pulaski county, Ga., March 7, 1827. He was graduated at Emory and Henry college, Virginia, after which he read law under John G. and Eli S. Shorter in Eufaula. In 1849 he was licensed as an attorney, and began the practice of law in Clayton. He devoted himself so completely to business that he kept entirely out of politics until 1857, when he was chosen to represent Barbour county in the Alabama legislature. He served as a member of the house of representatives until 1861. Upon the very first threat of war he urged Governor Moore to accept the volunteer regiment of trained companies of which he was colonel. Two of the companies were accepted in February, and he enlisted in one of them as a private, but was not allowed to remain in this position. He was ordered to go at once to Pensacola and take command of the Alabama troops as they should arrive. On March 28, 1861, the First Alabama regiment was organized, with him as colonel. He remained at Pensacola in this service, part of the time in command of a brigade, for a year, and then organized a new regiment, the Thirty-ninth Alabama, which he led as colonel in the Kentucky campaign and in the sanguinary battle of Murfreesboro. In this last-named battle he was severely wounded, and immediately after he was promoted to brigadier-general. The brigade to which he was assigned at Tullahoma, in April, 1863, consisted of the Eighteenth, Thirty-sixth, Thirty-eighth, Fifty-second and Fifty-eighth regiments. Clayton's brigade bore a conspicuous part at Chickamauga, in the fighting around Dalton, at New Hope church, and in all the battles of the Atlanta and Tennessee campaigns, and the final campaign in the Carolinas. General Clayton's splendid conduct in the Atlanta campaign obtained for him the commission of major-general, July 7, 1864, and he became the successor of A. P. Stewart in division command, the brigades under his command being Gibson's, Stovall's, Baker's and his own, under Holtzclaw. He led this superb division during the battles around Atlanta, at Jonesboro, in the Nashville campaign, and up to the surrender in North Carolina. After the defeat at Nashville, Clayton, with his division and the brigade of General Pettus, covered the retreat of the army until relieved by General Stevenson on the next day. General Hood said: "Order among the troops was in a measure restored at Brentwood, a few miles in rear of the scene of disaster, through the promptness and gallantry of Clayton's division, which speedily formed and confronted the enemy, with Gibson's brigade and McKenzie's battery of Fenner's battalion, acting as rear-guard. General Clayton displayed admirable coolness and courage in the discharge of his duties." At the close of the war General Clayton turned his attention to planting, till elected judge of the circuit court in May, 1866. This position he held until removed, under the reconstruction acts of Congress, in 1868. From that time he practiced law and planted, until his death at Tuscaloosa, Ala., October 13, 1889. He was an active, laborious man, a gallant soldier, and a Christian gentleman.