2nd Battalion State Cavalry (Harris’),
aka Harris’ Battalion
(from Dunbar Rowland’s "Military History of Mississippi, 1803-1898"; company listing courtesy of H. Grady Howell’s "For Dixie Land, I’ll Take My Stand’)
Company A -- Weatherall’s Company (raised in Pontotoc County, MS)
Company B -- Wood’s Company (raised in Pontotoc County, MS)
Company C -- Moore’s Company (raised in Monroe County, MS) & Rye’s Compay (raised in Pontotoc County, MS)
Carpenter’s Company (no letter designation or county of origin specified)
Major -- Thomas W. Harris. Adjutant -- James Moore. Quartermaster -- Carroll Ferguson. Surgeon -- John E. Turner.
This battalion was first organized for State service, in the fall of 1863 in Northeast Mississippi, Second Battalion State Cavalry, and reorganized under the direction of General Gholson and transferred to the Confederate States service May 1, 1864. Aggregate, March, 1864, 177.
General Forrest, in May, sent Major Harris to confer with Gen. S. D. Lee. "Major Harris is anxious to fill up his battalion to a regiment, and has several companies on their way to him." The battalion was consolidated in June with Ashcraft's Battalion, to form Ashcraft's Regiment, with Harris as Lieutenant-Colonel. (See Ashcraft's Mississippi Cavalry and Ashcraft's Consolidated Mississippi Cavalry).
Do you have an ancestor in this unit? If so, contact the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for his service record. Then contact us for a membership application.
