I.B. Feagin
(1833 - 1900)
Home State: Alabama
Command Billet: Commanding Regiment
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 15th Alabama Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
He became responsible for his family at his father's death when he was 14. He was elected Deputy Sheriff of Barbour County in 1854, and went into the "mercantile business" in Midway, Alabama. He helped organize the 'Midway Guards' infantry company before the War, and was its Captain. This unit became Company B of the 15th Alabama Regiment in May 1861 - Feagin elected 1st Lieutenant, then Captain.1
On the Campaign
He was in command of the Regiment at Sharpsburg, Colonel Oates then absent sick. He was wounded in action by a "shellburst" at Shepherdstown on 19 September.
The rest of the War
He was home in December 1862, evidenced by his marriage to Sallie Hall of Warren County, Georgia1, likely on sick leave, but by Gettysburg Feagin was Lieutenant Colonel (appt. 1 May 63) with the Regiment. Of combat on Little Round Top there on 2 July 1863, Colonel Oates later remembered the "destructive" fire of the 20th Maine opposite, and
"[m]y Lt. Col. I. B. Feagin, lost his leg; the heroic Capt. Ellison had fallen, while Capt. Brainard, one of the bravest and best officers in the regiment, fell ... Lieut. John A. Oates, my beloved brother, was pierced through with eight bullets and fell mortally wounded."2LCol Feagin was captured and spent 11 months in Federal Prison - he was exchanged in June 1864. He resigned or retired in December 1864.
After the War
He was elected sheriff of Barbour County in 1866, known as "a democrat, Baptist, Royal Arch Mason, member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen".1
References & notes
Birth
07/17/1833; Jones County, GA
Death
05/02/1900; Union Springs, AL; burial in Oak Hill Cemetery, Union Springs, AL
1 Abstracted by John D. Feagin, posted by Linda Feagin Harwell on a family geneology forum.
Owen, Thomas McAdory, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, 4 Vols., Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1921, Vol. 3 [AotW citation 51]
2 Quoted on the Gettysburg NMP Virtual tour site.
Oates, William C., The War Between the Union and the Confederacy and Its Lost Opportunities with a History of the 15th Alabama Regiment ..., New York and Washington DC: The Neale Publishing Company, 1905, --- [AotW citation 50]
3 State of Alabama, State Archives, and Dr. Edwin C. Bridges, director, and staff, Alabama Department of Archives & History, Published c.2000, first accessed 08 July 2005, <http://www.archives.state.al.us/index.html>, Source page: /cdm/singleitem/collection/photo/id/5300/rec/1 [AotW citation 20079]