J. M. Lamar

Confederate (CSA)

Lieutenant Colonel

Jefferson Mirabeau Lamar

(1835 - 1862)

Home State: Georgia

Command Billet: Battalion Lt Colonel

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: Cobb's (GA) Legion, Infantry Battalion

Before Sharpsburg

Was in law practice in Covington, GA.. He mustered into the Cobb's Legion, Infantry Battalion, Company C as Captain on 1 August 1861. He was promoted to Major of the Battalion on 16 November, and Lt Colonel 18 January 1862.

On the Campaign

"Holding the extreme right [at Crampton's Gap on 14 September], the Cobb Legion Infantry was quickly surrounded and nearly annihilated by the New Jersey Brigade. Within twenty minutes the Legion suffered 72 percent casualties, many taken as prisoners of war."

"In this horrible predicament the Legion likely would have followed Munford's men in panicked retreat up the mountain. But its lieutenant colonel, Jefferson M. Lamar, held them to their impossible work until he had been twice shot, once mortally. By holding on to the last possible moment Lamar bought time for Howell Cobb to assemble a last-ditch stand in the gap, further forestalling Union penetration into Pleasant Valley where it would compromise Gen. Robert E. Lee's tenuous hold on South Mountain and with it the Confederate expedition into Maryland."
(from Reese)

Succeeded by LCol Glenn in command of the battalion.

The rest of the War

Lamar died the next day at Burkittsville, and was buried in the graveyard behind the German Reformed church there. He was later (1868?)reinterred at the Washington Confederate Cemetery, Hagerstown, and finally home to Georgia.

References & notes

Source: Roster, Cobb's Legion Infantry Battalion, Company C, online courtesy of Cobb's Legion.

He married his cousin Mary Ann Lamar in July 1861 - she was also neice to Mrs. Howell Cobb.

Picture above is part of a photograph owned by Mrs. W. Elliott Dunwody, Jr. Original burial information from the Bowie List via WHILBR.