(1840 - 1910)
Home State: South Carolina
Education: South Carolina College, Class of 1860
Command Billet: Battery Commander
Branch of Service: Artillery
Before Sharpsburg
A recent college graduate, from Sumter, SC, he enlisted as Private, Company D, 2nd South Carolina Infantry on 8 April 1861. He was described as being 5'-4" tall with a fair complexion, black eyes, and black hair. He was at First Manassas in July and was promoted to Corporal by February 1862. Returning home, he recruited men and formed a battery of artillery which became the Palmetto Light Artillery ...
the guns being cast under his supervision from church bells at Columbia.
On the Campaign
He commanded the battery in Maryland.
The rest of the War
He commanded the Palmetto Light Artillery through all major campaigns in the war, 2nd Manassas, Sharpsburg, Suffolk, Gettysburg, Mine Run, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Richmond, and signed the parole roster at Appomattox.
After the War
He moved to Virginia and graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1866. He practiced law in Columbia, SC beginning in 1867 and married in Virginia in 1868. He was a lawyer in Fauquier County, VA in 1880 but went to New York City in 1883 where he practiced law and helped found the New York chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. When he retired he moved back to Sumter.
References & notes
Basic source is Glenn Dedmont's Southern Bronze (Palmetto Bookworks, 1993). Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860 and 1880. His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of his picture, from a photograph of unknown provenance.
He married Lucy Gordon Robertson (1845-1931) in May 1868 in Albemarle County, VA.
His younger brother Alester Gibbes Garden, Jr (b. 1843) was a Sergeant in the battery after Sharpsburg, but was mortally wounded on 3 May 1863 at Suffolk, VA, and died at home on 25 May 1863.
More on the Web
Poulin Antiques and Auctions offered his uniform frock coat for sale online in December 2020.
Some of his wartime correspondence and other ephemera are in a collection at Furman in Greenville, SC, source also of further bio details.
Birth
06/09/1840; Sumter, SC
Death
10/25/1910; Southport, NC; burial in Sumter Cemetery, Sumter, SC