John Richard Simpson

From Mobile, he enrolled 19 March 1861 as 2nd Lieutenant, Company B, 3rd Alabama Infantry and mustered at Montgomery, AL on 21 April 1861. He was promoted to Captain in November 1861.

He led 3 or 4 companies of the regiment as the first Confederate soldiers to cross the Potomac River into Maryland at the start of the Campaign. They crossed as the vanguard of Rodes' Brigade at Cheek's Ford at about 4 pm on 4 September 1862.

He was seriously wounded in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was retired due to wounds, date not given, and served in the Substitute Department from 1864 to the end of the war.

His first child was born in Somerville , Mississippi in 1865, but he was living back in Mobile by 1872.

Service from the State of Alabama.1. His wound at Sharpsburg from Brewer's Alabama, Her History, Resources, War Record, and Public Men (1900). His Potomac River crossing from Hartwig2 citing soldiers' letters of 8 and 9 September in the Mobile Register and Advertiser of 28 September 1862. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Mary Lorena Cook (1839-1908) in 1858, and they had four children together.

An excellent post-war photograph (probably) of him is in collection of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery.

01/24/1833; Selma, AL

06/13/1913; Mobile, AL; burial in Magnolia Cemetery, Mobile, AL