John Wesley Brady is believed to be the brother of my 2nd great grandmother Mira Brady.

State Served: Georgia
Unit Numbers: 388 388
Service Record: Promoted to Full Chaplain
Enlisted as a Captain on 04 March 1862
Commission in Company K, 39th Infantry Regiment Georgia on 04 March 1862.
Killed Company K, 39th Infantry Regiment Georgia on 15 May 1864 in Resaca, GA

William Simmons Brady was one of six children born to Capt. John Wesley and Susannah Brady. He was born July 29, 1853, probably in Dawson county. His father was a farmer and then became a preacher. He joined the Confederate Army and his appointment as Chaplain came through the day after his death. W.S. Brady's grandparents were Jesse and Easter Tanner Brady. W. S. Brady died
Oct. 9, 1922.

John Wesley Brady married Susannah Simmons in 1845. She was born in 1830 and died in 1876. John Wesley died in 1864. According to descendants of Susanna Simmons Brady, she greived until her death for the loss of her husband.

John Brady lived on Amicalola Creek in Lumpkin County, Ga many years before he was a preacher. He was a hard-working young man on a farm and a zealous member of the Methodist Church, and altar-worker at Lumpkin camp meetings. His mother was a good woman (Easter Brady). Brother Brady was married to an estimable young lady of good family. He became a local preacher and entered the Methodist Conference at the close of 1852.

He was a member of the Conference about ten years before the War. He was large, portly man, with commanding appearance, with wonderful powers of endurance in protracted meeting. A man of great zeal and usefulness. He preached, as did most preachers in his day, for immediate results. Brady and others like him sowed the good seed broadcast o'er the land. He had eighteen churches, preached every day in the week except Mondays, which were rest days to travel ten or twenty miles. The week day appointments were attended with large congregrations. About nine o'clock a.m. the farmers stopped the plows and all, including the slaves, went to circuit preaching. The Negroes occupied the rear of the church, always being invited to sacrament on communion occasions. This was a sample circuit in those days.

The preacher in those days did hard work, lived on scant salaries. They traveled, sang, prayed and preached much, winning souls, happy in the work.

In 1860 Brady resigned his charge and raised a company, entering the Confederate army as Captain in the 39th Georgia regiment, Cummings Brigade. Besides his duties as Senior Captain, he sometimes commanded the regiment; he did about as much preaching to the soldiers as any of the chaplains

During the war the regiment had two chaplains. The first was George C.M.R. Kramer and the second was John W. Brady. Chaplain Kramer served the 39th Georgia Regiment up until the late winter of 1863 when he was cut off from the regiment as the siege of Vicksburg began.He provided his services in the interim in hospitals around Atlanta.He
requested and ultimately received a transfer (Special Order #1287) to post duty in Atlanta.

Chaplain Brady was elected to the position of Regimental Chaplain just the week prior to his being killed in action at the Battle of Resaca, Georgia on 15 May 1864. He is one of fifty Confederate chaplains that died of wounds or disease during the war. After his death, there is no record currently known showing a chaplain providing
direct spiritual support to the regiment other than the internally designated company chaplains.

14 September 1862, Sunday Chaplain Kramer preaches "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might."

28 September 1862, Sunday Private J.R. Parker (Company F) preached at 10:00 a.m., topic "Why will ye die", and at 3:00 p.m., Captain Brady(Commander, Company K) preached on Job Chapter XXII, verse 21.

Such was his zeal for souls he offered his resignation as Captain and applied for the Chaplaincy in his own regiment. His resignation as Captain and appointment as Chaplain came the very day after he was killed.

At the head of his company in the Resaca battle, he was looking over the breastworks, watching the advance of the federal soldiers, waiting for the order to open fire, when a minnie ball entered his left jaw, going out the top of his head. He died instantly.

On the retreat of General Johnson's army between midnight and day, we brought his body off the battlefield in an ambulance. Two miles south of Calhoun, we came to a small country graveyard on a small hill in front of what was then known as Curtis house. Brother Louis B. Payne and Harvey McCan and I, all Chaplains, had the body in charge, no one else assisting. Removing the body from the ambulance, it was laid on a rail pen over a grave. I do not know why he did it, but Brother McCan shaved the dead soldier's face. I shall never forget the ghastly wound on his jaw where the ball entered. He died in the Battle of Resaca.

At the Curtis House we obtained mattock, shovel and some planks, dug the grave, sawed the plank to fit the vault, without nails, wrapped the body in his soldier's blankets, and with some difficulty lowered the heavy body into the grave. After filling the grave, the three Chaplains knelt around the grave in silent prayer, remembering the wife and children then in Dawson County. Perhaps there never was just such a scene in war. Three ministers, chaplains, burying a fellow minister killed in war. (His body now rest at Resaca Confederate Cemetery, Gordon County, Georgia)

By: W. A. Parks, Chaplain, Whitesburg, Ga.

The above was printed in the Wesleyan Christian Advocate, Wed. Apr. 5, 1899.
John Wesley Brady was the father of William Simmons Brady, Pickens County resident, who was about ten years old when his father was killed at the Battle of Resaca Resaca, May 14, 1864.. (submitted by: Mary Nell
Boling, Marietta, Ga.)