Civil War
When secession passed, Alcorn cast his lot with the Confederacy and was selected as a brigadier general by the state. During the American Civil War, he was in uniform for about 18 months of inconspicuous service, mainly in raising troops and in garrison duty. He was taken prisoner in Arkansas in 1862 and paroled late in the year. He returned to his plantation. In 1863, he was elected to the Mississippi state legislature. Both his sons, James Alcorn, Jr., and Henry Alcorn, died during the war – James Jr. in battle and Henry of typhoid fever. He managed to maintain his wealth during the Civil War by trading cotton with the North. After the war, he was estimated to be among the fifty wealthiest men in the New South.
The monument on the mound, the location of the family cemetery at Alcorn's plantation, attributes Jame Lusk Alcorn, Jr's death to the 'insane war of rebellion" (undoubtedly Alcorn's words). J. L. Alcorn Jr. committed suicide in 1879 after returning home from the war partially deaf and a drunk. Hal Alcorn ran away against his father's wishes during the war to join the military, fell sick, was left behind, captured, made his way to Richmond after the surrender, some family friends tried to help him get home, but he died on the way. Alcorn had a statue made of himself, after his death it was put on the mound, on his grave.
Read more about this topic: James L. Alcorn
Famous quotes related to civil war:
“They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
Of the expropriated mycologist.”
—Derek Mahon (b. 1941)
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)