Felix Zollicoffer, a former Congressman and newspaper editor from Tennessee who joined the confederacy during the #CivilWar, was born #OTD in 1812. He and his wife Louisa, a direct descendant of Pocahontas, had 14 children, but only 6 survived past infancy.🧵
Though Zollicoffer did not support secession, he volunteered his service to the Provisional Army of Tennessee when it was formed. He had some brief experience in the @USArmy during the Second Seminole War, and so was named a brigadier general in the state’s army in July, 1861.
Named District Commander area of eastern Tennessee, Zollicoffer and his small force fought several small engagements with @USArmy forces over control of that part of the state as wells as Kentucky and the Cumberland Gap.
In January 18, 1862, while commanding a brigade at the Battle of Mill Springs against a U.S. force led by General George Thomas, Zollicoffer mistook a U.S. officer for a confederate, rode out past his lines to meet him, and was shot and killed.
A @USArmy surgeon embalmed his body, and it was respectfully returned to confederates forces. He’s buried in Nashville’s Old City Cemetery alongside his wife, who had passed away five years earlier.
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