James Braswell (1832 - 1898) - Civil War Soldier

Confederate Prisoners

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Washington, D.C., USA   //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.15835

James Belton Braswell is believed to have been born 7 September 1835 in South Carolina. He received training as a brickmason and later worked as a building contractor.

During the Civil War, James enlisted initially as a private in Company B, 26th Alabama Infantry (O’Neal’s Regiment), but in August 1862, he and his brother W. D. deserted. They were captured by the Union Army at Camp Davies, Mississippi, on 28 December 1863. Five months later, on 31 May 1864, they took a loyalty oath and enlisted in the U. S. Army. Braswell’s own account was much more colorful.

After a year or two of soldiering, he and a comrade named R. A. Crowley were fighting in Georgia when they deserted for the first time. They were soon captured by their Confederate fellows. The South, being by then desperate for soldiers, did not execute the pair, but confined them to the guardhouse. Braswell and Crowley escaped a second time by knocking a guard down. Recaptured and confined yet again, they made a third attempt to escape, but were foiled. Despairing of keeping the slippery pair in uniform, the commanding officer ordered them to be shot the next morning at sunrise.

As the condemned men sat in the guardhouse that night, Braswell persuaded Crowley to make one last break for it, saying “Let us try one more run. The chances are that we won’t make it wand will most likely get killed, but what of that? We’ll only shorten our years by five hours.”

The pair surprised and killed a guard, fleeing into the night. Before morning they reached a dense swamp and made their way to Sherman’s lines, where they surrendered.

James Braswell married his first wife, Mary Jane DuBose in Indiana in 1863. After the war, Braswell’s skills as a brickmason were undoubtedly in demand as new settlements sprang up out West. By 1870, the Braswells were living in Elk City, Kansas, and were the parents of three children, Sophronia Belle, George Belton, and James Elliot.

Around 1884, the Braswells moved to Arizona, accompanied by James’s old friend Crowley. Their last five children: Claude, John Wesley, Maude Pauline, Audrey and Joseph Franklin, were born in Phoenix. Although Braswell claimed to have been the father of 24 children, only 14 have been documented.

Although Braswell had been an industrious and skillful workman for most of his life, he took up drinking during his last years. When he expired on 13 January 1898, bottles of laudanum and paregoric were found in his pockets. Thinking that he might have committed suicide, Justice Johnstone ordered an inquest. The cause of death was cleared up when Mrs. Braswell testified that he habitually carried them to relieve a persistent ear ache.

James Braswell is buried in Porter Cemetery.  Come visit us, and learn more about this soldier at the PMMP! - adapted by a story from Sue Wilcox