Robert Falligant

Son of a successful grocer and #2 of 12 children, from Savannah, GA, he was a student at the University of Virginia in January 1861 when he enlisted in the Captain Hutter's Southern Guard, a militia company of students and faculty. He served with them at Harpers Ferry in April and to their return to Charlottesville and dissolution on 8 May 1861. He enlisted again, on 3 July 1861 in Charlottesville, VA, as a Corporal in the Albemarle Artillery, who became Company H, First Virginia Artillery. He was promoted to Sergeant about January 1862 and transferred to Cutts' (GA) Artillery Battalion on 28 May 1862 and was Battalion Sergeant Major by August 1862. He was assigned to Captain Blackshear's Sumter Artillery, probably as acting 2nd Lieutenant.

On the afternoon of 16 September 1862 he was posted in command of one gun of his battery on the Hagerstown Pike about 180 yards south of the Miller Cornfield. He commanded a section of guns on the 17th after Lieutenant Maddox was wounded.

He was acting 2nd Lieutenant by October 1862. When Blackshear's Battery was dissolved, he, along with Lieutenant Maddox and a gun crew, were sent to Company I, 31st Battalion (Nelson's) Virginia Artillery - later known as Milledge's Battery - and on 4 October 1862 he was appointed Junior 2nd Lieutenant of the battery. He was appointed 2nd Lieutenant (PACS) on 26 June 1863 (confirming his earlier, less official appointment), was temporarily assigned to Fraser's Battery (Pulaski Artilery, Read's at Sharpsburg) of Cabell's Battalion on 19 November 1863. He was particularly noted for his actions with a single Napoleon in an advanced position at Cold Harbor, VA on 2 June 1864. He continued with them to at least November 1864 and probably to the end of the war.

In 1870 he was practicing law and living with his parents and 2 siblings in Savannah and by 1880 was a lawyer living in his own place there. He served a term each in the State House and Senate and was Captain of the Oglethorpe Light Infantry. He was appointed a judge of the Eastern Circuit Court in 1889 and was on the bench to his death in 1902.

His role on the Campaign from Carman.1 His service from his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1850-1900, and his obituary in the Atlanta Constitution of 4 January 1902. The 1850 Census has him as Robert L. Falligant, but that middle initial appears nowhere else afterward. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Ellen Moore Thomas (1840-1878) in October 1867 and they had 2 daughters. He married again, her older sister, the widow Sarah Jane Thomas Hall (1832-1915) in August 1879.

His papers, along with personal artifacts and an excellent post-war photograph of him (P-1361-42), are in the Robert Falligant Papers (GHS 0972) at the Georgia Historical Society, Savannah.

There's a fine c. 1900 formal portrait of him in the Georgia Capitol Building, Office of the Governor, in Atlanta.

01/12/1838; Savannah, GA

01/03/1902; Savannah, GA; burial in Summerville Cemetery, Augusta, GA