Not too far down the board, thanks to the collective efforts of George Purvis, David Upton, Jeff Giambrone and Mitchell Sanders, a great deal of information was discovered in a very short time about Samuel Jackson Harper (Mar 19, 1838 (1), Covington County, MS - Apr 17, 1937 (1), Jeff Davis County, MS) and his family. You will recall, S. J. Harper served successively in:

Company A of the 39th Mississippi (2)
Company B of the 46th Mississippi
Captain J.C. Barnes Home Guard (2), (3)
Company B of Yerger's Regiment (3)
Powers Regiment (organized March 1865)

(1) Year of birth shown as 1838 from Harper family genealogical data, and 1842 from Mr. McCaskill's Mississippi Graves Registration data provided by Mitchell Sanders and year of death shown as 1842 from Jeff Giambrone's Mississippi Confederate Grave Registration Index and 1937 from Harper family genealogical data.

(2) There are several men including Captain J. C. Barnes that are listed under Company A of the 39th and also listed for Captain J.C. Barnes Home Guard per David Upton.

(3) Barnes Company is also listed as Company B of Yerger's Regiment per David Upton.

On the occasion of Samuel Jackson Harper's 93rd Birthday, he shared with those present his recollections of his Civil War memories. Those recollections appeared in an April 1, 1938 Issue of the (newspaper name not included) which article carried a byline location of Prentiss, Mississippi in Jeff Davis County.

Mr Samuel Jackson Harper's recollections and the newspaper's editorialization included the following which I thought all of you might enjoy reading:

"BELOVED 'UNCLE SAM' HARPER RECALLS CIVIL WAR ACTIONS ON 93RD BIRTH ANNIVERSARY."

"PRENTISS, April 1. - (Special) - S.J. Harper, affectionately known all over this section as 'Uncle Sam,' celebrated his 93rd birthday recently at the home of his daughter, Mrs. J.C. Holland, of Bassfield, with whom he resides. 'Uncle Sam' was born on 'Nigger' Creek on March 19, 1838, in what is now Jeff. Davis County, but at that time in Covington County, Jeff Davis having been carved out of Covington and Lawrence counties in 1906. Mr. Harper is the son of Judge Alex Harper, for years probate judge in Covington, member of the board of supervisors and connected otherwise with the county in official and political capacities.

'Uncle Sam' was married on Dec. 15, 1859, to Miss Frances Applewhite who died ten years ago, the Rev. John Williams, a Methodist minister, performing the ceremony.

Confederate Veteran

'Uncle Sam' is a Confederate veteran and proud of it. He followed the Confederate colors four years. He was captured in the seige of Vicksburg, but was exchanged later and immediately rejoined the army, after a brief visit to his wife and two children whom he had left to enlist in the army in 1861. He was wounded in the leg at Franklin, Tenn. and suffered the loss of part of a perfectly good wool hat in the terrible fighting around Atlanta. He is acquainted with General Sherman and his tectics, for he fought the old fellow as he made his memorable 'march to the sea.''Old Joe Johnston was a fighter who knew how to save his men, for he knew that falling back was as good strategy as advancing.' said the veteran as he chatted with friends who had gathered to pay their respect to him on his birthday. 'Hood wsa too fiery and impetuous. He was daring, but he lacked the balance of caution which Johnston had.' said the old Confederate. Getting into a lighter [mood - my insert], 'Confederates did not run, but simply retreated or fell back. The vein [?], he facetiously remarked, that Yankees did the running.'

Early Politics

'Uncle Sam' is perhaps the only living person who has seen in the flesh Albert Gallatin Brown, former governor of the state, and Jno. J. Pettus, governor of Mississippi during the Civil War. Mr. Harper, as a small boy, rode behind his father on a frisky pony to Old Williamsburg, Covington county, to hear A.G. Brown, candidate for governor, speak. 'Uncle Sam' does not remember much that Brown said, but distinctly recalls that the cnadidate had the finest set of sideburns he ever saw grown, and, too, one of the classiest rigs he had every seen. Brown had come down in a closed carriage, driven by a negro coachman in livery. The rig attracted the six-year-old boy. Candidate Brown wore a bee-gum that shone as though it had been polished with owl grease. 'Old Brown wsa smart, but I was too young to understand his speech, and I was interested in that rig. Those shiny hubs and that darkey out there all dressed up with a duster on cautht my fancy.' But he recalls that candidate Brown knew how to get the boys in a yelling mood, pulling his brace of whiskers at the proper periods to [ ? ? ] very good effect.

Civil War Memories

It was some time in 1860 when Gov. John J. Pettus drove hard from Jackson to reach Old Williamsburg at a grand rally. War talk was in the air. Young Harper then wsa married and the father of two children. Coming from a race of people who had always been fighters when the necessity arose, he hoped that war might be averted. Pettus met a great crowd at the old Covington county seat. He was in fine fettle and swept the folks off their feet. The old court house rafters fairly quivered under his thunderous message, 'I'll drink every drop of blood shed in this talked-of war,' shouted Gov. Pettus. 'The Yankees won't fight; they are bluffers; it will simply be a breakfast spell,' shouted the governor as he swept them into an hysteria of passion. Looking back over the long years, Mr. Harper remarked that it wsa the awfullest breakfast spell he ever had anything to do with. But youth was daring, and off to the war the young man went, kissing his young wife and two babies good-bye. 'No, we did not fight for the perpetuation of slavery. Many of those boys in the Confederate army were the poorest kind of people. They did not own slaves. We fought to preserve our homes against an invading army; and, too, for the constitutional right to run our own business in a peaceful manner,' declared the veteran.

When asked about conditions now as compared with times in his youth and following the Civil War, the veteran replied: 'Folks do not know anything about hard times. Why, I have paid $50 for a bushel of salt and was glad to get it at that price,paying in Confederate money which was all we had.' Asked whether peoplenow are lessreligious than in his day, he replied that there is always a 'streak of fat and streak of lean' in morality. 'Folks now are just as religious on the whole as they have ever been and I think times are getting better,' said the old soldier of 93 years.

During his 93 years, Mr. Harper is in good health. His mind is as vigorous as ever in life, and although he has had his share of the sorrow of the years, he is one of the most optimistic men in this section, and it is not a blind optimism, butone based on the faith of the eternal fitness of things. With his wife, now dead, he reared a large family, all of whom have made successesw. One of his sons was a prominent physician for years in South Mississippi; another, Sam Harper, Jr., has been conducting on the Mississippi Central since the first train was brought east from Hattiesburg; others are prominent. His living children are Mrs Louis Polk, Prentiss; I.I. Harper, Winnsboro, La; S.J. Harper, Jr., Hattiesburg; T.T. Harper, G.A. Harper, Los Angeles, Calif; Mrs. C. W. Carraway, Eudora, Ark.; Mrs J.C. Holland, Bassfield. Mr. Harper is a member of the pension board of Jefferson Davis county.

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Dennis K. Boswell for Ted Harper, S.J. Harper's great grandson.