The American Civil War General Officers

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Biography

Brigadier-General John Gregg

Brigadier-General John Gregg fought in three of the principal armies of the Confederacy, and gained distinction in each. He entered the service in the Seventh Texas as colonel of the regiment; was captured at Fort Donelson, and, on being exchanged, he and his regiment were stationed for a time at

Grenada, Miss.

He was commissioned brigadier-general on August 29, 1862. His brigade embraced, during the campaign in north Mississippi and afterward in the Vicksburg campaign, the Seventh Texas, the First, Third, Tenth, Thirtieth, Forty-first and Fiftieth regiments of Tennessee infantry, and Bledsoe's light battery of artillery.

When Sherman, with 33,000 men, began his movement upon Vicksburg in December, the brigades of Barton, Gregg and Vaughn were promptly transferred from Grenada to Vicksburg. In the battle which occurred at Chickasaw bayou, December 27,

1862, resulting in the repulse of Sherman with a loss of 1,776 in killed, wounded and missing, only a small part of the Confederates near Vicksburg were engaged, and Gregg's brigade had but a slight part in the battle.

In January, 1863, he was transferred to Port Hudson, and in May ordered to Jackson. During the advance of Grant upon Vicksburg from the rear, in May, 1863, the Confederate forces in Mississippi were so managed that they were put into battle in detachments and beaten in detail.

General Gregg, alone at Raymond, on May 12th, was allowed to be overwhelmed by a greatly superior force, but the fight he made was a memorable one. He retreated from that field in the direction of Jackson, where he was reinforced by other commands, forming the force that was being assembled under Gen. J. E. Johnston, with the design of raising the siege of Vicksburg.

After the fall of Vicksburg and the evacuation of Jackson, when forces were being concentrated in Georgia to enable Bragg to defeat Rosecrans, Gregg's brigade was one of those sent for that purpose. On the second day at Chickamauga the heavy pressure on Thomas caused Rosecrans to support him by sending troops which left a gap in the Federal line. Into this Longstreet immediately pushed the brigades of McNair, Gregg, Kershaw, Law, Humphrey, Benning and Robertson. This caused the Federal disaster that gave the Confederates the brilliant victory of Chickamauga.

Subsequently, his old brigade was separated, the Texas regiment going into Granbury's brigade; and when Longstreet returned to Virginia in the spring of 1864, Gregg went with him in command of Hood's old brigade, embracing the First, Fourth and Fifth

Texas and Third Arkansas regiments.

On the second day of the battle of the Wilderness, when Longstreet's corps checked the victorious onset of the Federals, General Gregg and his Texans won immortal fame. He took an active part in the great struggle thus inaugurated, from the Rapidan to the James, and served in the defense of the Richmond and Petersburg lines until October 7, 1864, when

he was killed on the field of battle before Richmond, and the service of another able officer was lost to the Confederacy."^[1][2]