Early Life and Career
Neill was born to John and Margery Ferguson Neill who hailed from Loch Fergus Farm, Ayrshire, Scotland. His parents moved the family to North Carolina and eventually had 11 children. James married Margaret Harriett Ferguson in 1807. Neill moved his family to Alabama and later enlisted in the West Tennessee Militia (protecting present day Alabama). He enlisted on September 20, 1814 and was discharged on April 10, 1815. He participated in the latter part of the War of 1812, during the Creek War. Although wounded, he fought in the decisive battle against the Red Sticks, at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
He served as a Captain under Major William Woodfolk. The battalion was designated as "Separate Battalion of West Tennessee Militia". This battalion was based at Fort Jackson most of the time from late November 1814 to early 1815. Some of the men were stationed at Fort Decatur, where the remnants of the defeated Creek Nation came to surrender, seeking food and supplies (surrendering Creeks also went to Fort Jackson). One company, under Captain Abner Pearce, was stationed at Fort Montgomery. Woodfolk was a wealthy land speculator who owned a large plantation in Jackson County.
Read more about this topic: James C. Neill
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or career:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892?)
“Very early in our childrens lives we will be forced to realize that the perfect untroubled life wed like for them is just a fantasy. In daily living, tears and fights and doing things we dont want to do are all part of our human ways of developing into adults.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“Being so wrong about her makes me wonder now how often I am utterly wrong about myself. And how wrong she might have been about her mother, how wrong he might have been about his father, how much of family life is a vast web of misunderstandings, a tinted and touched-up family portrait, an accurate representation of fact that leaves out only the essential truth.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows whats good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)