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H.R. Garden
(1840 - 1910)
Home State: South Carolina
Education: South Carolina College (1860),
University of Virginia Law, Class of 1866
Command Billet: Battery Commander
Branch of Service: Artillery
Before Sharpsburg
A recent college graduate, from Sumter, SC, he enlisted for one year there on 8 April 1861 and mustered as Color Bearer/Color Sergeant in Captain John Smythe Richardson's Company (later D, Richardson a cousin on his mother's side), 2nd South Carolina Infantry on 23 May. He extended his enlistment for 2 years on 7 February 1862 with no later record with the 2nd Infantry.
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.By July 1862 he was Captain of the battery.
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; Suffolk, Gettysburg, Mine Run, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Richmond, and signed the parole roster at Appomattox, at that time described as 23 years old, being 5'-4" tall with a fair complexion, black eyes, and black hair and having one private horse.
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
His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860 and 1880, Glenn Dedmont's Southern Bronze (1993), and a bio sketch in The University Magazine (August 1892), source of the quote about the casting of his guns. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a magnificent hand-colored photograph sold by LiveAuctions in September 2017.
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
07/09/1840; Sumter, SC
Death
10/25/1910; Southport, NC; burial in Sumter Cemetery, Sumter, SC
1 US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, Record Group No. 109 (War Department Collection of Confederate Records), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927 [AotW citation 30575]