Carnot Posey - Civil War

Civil War

Posey recruited a local militia company, the Wilkinson Rifles, and enlisted them into Confederate service, serving as their captain from May 21, 1861. They became part of the 16th Mississippi, with Posey being selected as the regiment's first colonel on June 4. Not long afterward, Posey saw his first action of the war in a skirmish near Corinth, Mississippi. He and his men were transferred to the Eastern Theater in August 1861.

Posey suffered a slight wound at the Battle of Cross Keys during Major General Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign in June 1862. His regiment fought through the Seven Days Battles with the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee. He served as the temporary commander of the brigade of four Mississippi infantry regiments, commanded by Brigadier General Winfield S. Featherston, during the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Maryland Campaign. Posey's regiment fought at Fredericksburg in December 1862, successfully repelling a Union attack. In the spring of 1863, Posey was promoted to Brigadier General with date of rank of November 1, 1862.

The following May, Posey's Brigade saw limited action at the Battle of Chancellorsville, maintaining a reserve position at Salem Church. During the army reorganization following Stonewall Jackson's death, Posey's Brigade was assigned to Major General Richard H. Anderson's division of the Third (A.P. Hill's) Corps. During the Battle of Gettysburg in July, the brigade was part of Anderson's July 2 attack on Cemetery Ridge, conducting a "feeble, disjointed attack that was repulsed."

During the fall campaign, Posey was wounded in the left thigh by a shell fragment at the Battle of Bristoe Station on October 14, 1863. He was initially taken to Culpeper Court House for medical treatment. In an era with limited understanding of germs, infection soon set in. After a month's struggle to live, Posey died in Room 33 West Lawn at the University of Virginia, under the care of his good friend, Dr. John Davis, in Charlottesville, Virginia, in November. Posey was buried in the Davis family plot in the cemetery of the University of Virginia.