Corporal Merritt R. Brown

Company C, 4th Tennessee Infantry · The Wigfall Grays · c. 1844 – 1878

A Collierville boy who went to war in 1861, was chosen by his comrades for the Confederate Roll of Honor after Murfreesboro, and came home to work on the railroad. He died in the yellow fever epidemic of 1878. His grave in Magnolia Cemetery had no headstone for sixty-two years, until 1940.

Chosen by the men beside him

Murfreesboro (Stones River), December 31, 1862

By law, the soldiers of each company chose one man from among them for the Confederate Roll of Honor. After Murfreesboro, the Wigfall Grays chose Merritt Brown. His name was published by the War Department in Richmond in General Orders No. 131, October 3, 1863.

He fought that day as a private. Within two months he wore a corporal's stripes. What he did in the cedars was known to the men beside him and never written down. The company's captain, Wiley T. Cargill, reported its choice. He, too, is buried at Magnolia Cemetery.

His life, from the records

1850. Age six, "attending school," in his parents' household in Marshall County, Mississippi. U.S. census, 1850.

1861. A pupil at Sylvan Academy; on May 23 his father pays for six months' "tuition of son Merit." Sylvan Academy account.

1861. Enlists at Germantown on May 15 in the company that becomes the Wigfall Grays. Compiled service record.

1862. Fights at Murfreesboro on December 31 as a private; his company chooses him for the Roll of Honor. General Orders No. 131.

1865. Paroled at Gainesville, Alabama, on May 11, with men of Forrest's command. Compiled service record; parole register.

1870. Railroad agent at Collierville, with his wife Mattie and daughter Lena. U.S. census, 1870.

1878. Dies of yellow fever at Collierville in early September and is buried in Magnolia Cemetery. Estate papers; headstone application.

1940. Mrs. B. M. Cowan of Collierville applies to the War Department for a headstone for "the UNMARKED grave of a veteran." The stone is shipped that May. Application for headstone, January 15, 1940.

Today. Remembered in the Wigfall Grays display at the Morton Museum of Collierville History.

His family

His parents, Benjamin F. and Catharine A. Hunter Brown, were farmers who moved from Tennessee to Marshall County, Mississippi, and by 1851 had settled on the railroad at Collierville. Merritt was named for his father's older brother, Merritt R. Brown Sr. He grew up with eight brothers and sisters: William, Augusta, John, Matthews, Catherine, Frank, Susan and Lalla.

The family's prosperity rested in part on the labor of people they held in slavery. Those whose names survive in the family's court records, among them Jane, Peggy, Rachel and Tom, are listed on the His Life page so that they can be found.

The book

The story of Corporal Merritt R. Brown, the Wigfall Grays and their town is told in An Honor Unearned: From the Streets of Collierville, Tennessee, to Edgefield, South Carolina, by Michael Louis Meece. Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. More about the book at anhonorunearned.org.