1838-1863
 
 
          John Pelham was born September 7, 1838, in a log house near Alexandria, Benton County, Alabama. He was the third son of Atkinson and Martha Pelham.
 
        As a young man, he was considered handsome, of medium height, well proportioned figure, blond hair and blue eyes. He was an honorable man of unquestionable character, and his proficiency in military exercises and all that pertained to the details of a soldier's life made him a cadet officer at West Point Military Academy. He  remained at West Point from 1856 until 1861, when he resigned to serve in the military of the Confederate States of America.  

         In 1861 John Pelham became a 1st Lieutenant in  J.E.B. Stuart's Horse Artillery. His commission as Captain,  in the Provisional Army of the State of Virginia, was signed by Governor Letcher on May 1, 1862. His rank  starting on March 23, 1862, and he became a Major in the
middle of August, 1962.

        General Robert E. Lee called him, "The Gallant Pelham",  after his artillery action at Fredericksburg.  At the beginning of the battle of Kelly's Ford, on March 17, 1863, Major John Pelham was hit by an exploding shell. He was brought to the Shackleford House in  Culpepper, where doctors feverishly worked on him, but his skull had been too severely injured. He lay unconscious until shortly after midnight, when he lost the battle for life. When he died on March 18, 1863, at the young age of 25, the South lost a great man.

          His body lay in state in Richmond's Capitol for three days; he was buried in the Jacksonville Cemetery, in Jacksonville, Alabama, on March 31, 1863. A statue of  Major John Pelham now stands over his grave. A tribute  to just one of the many Gallant men who wore the gray  and served the Confederacy with honor.

            There is a town and school, in Alabama, named Pelham.

 

"No Man Is Dead Until He Is Forgotten"