Joseph Benjamin Polley

(1840 - 1918)
Home State: Texas
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 4th Texas Infantry

Before the Antietam Campaign:
Sometime after graduating, he enlisted as Private in Company F, 4th Texas Infantry. He was wounded in the head at Gaines' Mill (27 June 1862). He was promoted to Corporal some time before September 1862.

The remainder of the War:
He was wounded in action and lost his right foot at Darbytown Road near Richmond on 7 October 1864.

After the War:
He returned to Texas, studied law and passed the bar in 1868. He went into practice in 1876, when he moved to Floresville, Texas. He was County Attorney (1877-78) and in the State Legislature (1879). He wrote extensively on the War, most notably in Hood's Texas Brigade (1910), and A Soldier's Letters to Charming Nellie (1908). He was elected commander of the Texas Division of the United Confederate Veterans, and contributed often to the Confederate Veteran magazine.

References, Sources, and other notes:
Basic biography from the Handbook1, with additional details from the finding aid to an 1862 letter of his in the collection of the Pearce Museum at Navarro College.

Birth Date: 10/27/1840    Place of Birth: near Bailey's Prairie, TX
College: Florence Wesleyan University (AL)    Graduating Year: 1861
Death Date: 02/02/1918    Death Place: Floresville, TX    Burial Place: Floresville City Cemetery, Floresville, TX

Notes

1 Thomas W. Cutrer,POLLEY, JOSEPH BENJAMIN
Ellis, L. Tuffly, and James W. Pohl, and Ron Tyler, Editors in Chief, The Handbook of Texas, Published 1999, <http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/index.html>, Source page: /articles/fpo10 [AotW citation 2906]

« Search for Another Participant