Pleasant Carter Templeton (1844 - 1864)

Born 1844 in White County, Tennessee, United States

Ancestors

Died 1864 at about age 20 in Nashville, Tennessee, United States

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Biography

Pleasant Templeton served in the United States Civil War.
Enlisted: mmm dd, yyyy
Mustered out: mm dd, yyyy
Side: CSA
Regiment(s): 16th TN Vol.REG

Pleasant was born in 1844. Pleasant was the child of William Templeton.

His first name seemed to describe his personality. Pleasant Carter Templeton was the idol of his mother's heart.

He was a young man when he enlisted to serve during the War Between the States. He enlisted on September 15, 1862. He left sick at Shelbyville, TN on February 27, 1863. He joined his brothers in the 16th TN Volunteer Infantry Regiment (formerly "K" Co.) on March 3, 1863. He was promoted to corporal on May 5, 1863.

Pleasant was wounded at the Battle of Franklin (Nov. 30, 1864). He was shot in the left lung. The "minie" ball or bullet exited through his back. He lived for twenty-eight days by the battlefield in Franklin, Williamson Co., TN. He was not actually captured by the Union soldiers until Dec. 18, 1864. The Union soldiers captured him while he was in the hospital in Franklin, Williamson Co., TN. He was later transferred to a camp hospital in Nashville, Davidson Co, TN. Two days later, he died in this camp hospital.

Federal records indicate that he was buried in grave #10768 of the Nashville City Cemetery. His body was later retrieved by his father and others. They made two attempts to retrieve the body. However, Union soldiers kept turning them back. They never gave up! Eventually, they retrieved the body. Green felt that his younger brother might have survived with better medical treatment. Pleasant's body was carried home by wagon over rutted frost-caked roads. The name of "P. Temple" was in a sealed bottle within the coffin. Pleasant Carter's family transferred his body into a sealed copper-lined casket.

Pleasant's grief-stricken mother, Lydia, who was very ill and not expected to live, asked that the coffin be placed in the upstairs room where the boy used to sleep, and asked that she and her son be buried at the same time. Lydia recovered , but the boy's coffin remained in the house to eventually become an accepted part of the household furnishings. Each week Lydia placed a clean coverlet over the coffin. It is said that Lydia would take naps on a pallet beside it, and that she wore ruts in the floor beside the coffin as she rocked in her rocking chair, knitting, sewing, or singing. The coffin remained in the house for 28 years, until Lydia's death in 1892. Devoted mother and beloved son were then buried side by side in the family graveyard near Quebeck. A three-sided, five-foot hig h granite tombstone still stands and marks the graves of Pleasant Carter Templeton, his mother Lydia, and his father William. This unusual act of devotion, as well as a number of stories of a "supernatural" sort which have arisen from it, have passed into the folklore of White County. ^[1] One monument in the Templeton Cemetery marks the final resting place of Pleasant, his mother and his father.

The name Pleas Templeton is etched in stone on a Civil War monument. The monument is located on the grounds of the Warren County Courthouse in McMinnville, TN.

Through the years, many family males were given the first name of Pleasant. This was in honor and memory of the beloved Pleasant Carter Templeton.

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Sources

1. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #18564952, Pvt Pleasant Carter "Pleas" Templeton, Templeton Cemetery, White County, Tennessee, USA.

See also:

• Civil War Document, Letter Written Just After the Battle of Perryville, KY, October 8, 1862, by Sergeant J. L. Davis, Reporting Losses, Published in Putnam County Herald, Cookeville, TN, 12 July 1905, pg. 5.[1]

• Duty First by Enzena Smith Williams, 1949

• Tennessee census records 1850 and 1860