Paul Turner Vaughan

He was the 5th of 12 children of wealthy physician and planter Samuel Watkins Vaughan (1804-1876) and Martha Virginia Turner (1814-1862). Going by Turner, in 1860 he was a 20 year old living with his parents, 5 siblings, and more than 100 slaves on their large plantation at Summerfield in Dallas County, AL. He left school to enlist on 26 April 1861 in Selma, AL and mustered as a Private in Company C, 4th Alabama Infantry. He was appointed 3rd Sergeant on 3 September 1861 but was reduced again to Private on 21 April 1862.

He was with his company in action on South Mountain on 14 September and at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was elected 3rd (Junior 2nd) Lieutenant on 29 January 1863 and was in action in most engagements up to his resignation on 20 December 1864 at Richmond, VA. He may have had later service as a Captain in an Alabama Cavalry unit.

By 1880 and to at least 1887 he was a wealthy cotton broker in Selma, AL. In 1900 he was a "capitalist" and he had retired there by 1910.

His service from the State of Alabama1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3, as P. Turner Vaughan. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860-1910. His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of his picture from a photograph contributed by Stanley A. Hutson. Thanks to Greyson Beardsley for a copy of that.

He died on the 54th anniversary of the Battle of Sharpsburg.

His 1863 diary and 1862-64 letters are in the collection of the University of Virginia library in Charlottesville.

08/17/1839; Dayton, AL

09/17/1916; Selma, AL; burial in Live Oak Cemetery, Selma, AL