Mell Rifles and Troup Light Artillery

MELL RIFLES & TROUP LIGHT ARTILLERY

 

The Mell Rifles. Co. D. Cobb's Legion Infantry, was raised in Athens, GA. in July 1861 by Patrick Hues Mell, Baptist minister and Vice Chancellor of the University of Georgia. After Mell resigned due to his wife's death, Thomas U. Camak was named commander. John Boswell Cobb, Robert Goodman and W.A. Winn were named lieutenants. Noncommissioned officers were J.F. Wilson, Wm. A. Gilleland, S.P. Kenney, G.W. Barber, J.J. Mattox and L.H. Horne. The unit fought throughout the war until two days before Appomattox when it was surrounded and captured.

 

Sgt. Benjamin Mell, son of Patrick, was seriously wounded. Thomas S. Lee, a local Southern sympathizer, nursed Mell at his home, "Needwood Forest", near Petersville. Mell died there on Oct. 21, 1862, and was buried in St. Mark's Episcopal Churchyard, Petersburg, his grave marked with a handsome monument.

 

The Troup Light Artillery was organized in Athens in 1859 and was placed under the command of Professor Marcellus Stanley. Stanley later became ill and turned over command to Dr. Henry Carlton, an Athens physician. In his report on the Battle of Crampton's Gap, Gen. Howell Cobb praised the unit for coolness under fire in checking the advance of the enemy.

 

This marker is erected to honor the memory of Athenians and their neighbors who fell at Crampton's Gap on September 14, 1862. The valor of those citizen-soldiers is remembered with gratitude and affection. Most of these men now lie in uninscribed graved in Washington Confederate Cemetery, Rose Hill, Hagerstown, MD.

 

Troup Light Artillery

Cobb's Legion, Cobb's Brigade

John J.N. Kenney

 

Mell Rifles or Camak's Company

Co. D. Cobb's Legion Infantry, Cobb's Brigade

 

J. Martin V.B Cody

Cody Fowler

William Glover

Asa G. Haguewood

George T. Highland, Jr.

John F. Kenney

John McHannon

Benjamin Mell

Burwell E. Yerby

 

Also killed were Col. John Basil Lamar, General Howell's aide and brother-in-laws, and Lt. Col. Jefferson Mirabeau Lamar, Commander of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb's Georgia Legion infantry, who had close ties to Athens.

 

ERECTED BY THE ATHENS (GA) HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 1992.

Submitted by Patrick M. Ryan