Harvey Scouts; Captain Harvey - Madison Co., MS USGenWeb

Many thanks expressed to Marion H. Carroll, who provided the two monument photos, as well as the portrait of Captain Addison Harvey

Captain Addison Harvey

Addison Harvey, their leader was a remarkable man. He would have none but reliable men about him. He had no use for a mean fellow or a stupid and lukewarm soldier. He was not satisfied with the mere mechanical performance of duty, he required vim, enthusiasm, resolution, activity and a conscientious devotion to the cause. And it was these traits that inspired his corps during the war and afterwards when they gathered each year in their reunion and in his memory. He was the kindest of friends with the tenderest heart, but with a rigid disciplinarian, exacting in the performance of duty.

This company was ordered to Pensacola and on his return, Harvey and Capt. Luckett raised a company of cavalry. They joined Col. Wirt Adams Regiment (Adams was born in Madison County) in 1862. Harvey soon attracted the attention of the commanding officer and was frequently detached on secret expeditions.

In one of his last engagements with the Scouts, Capt. Harvey learned that Gen. McCook with his division of cavalry was in northern Georgia in the rear of the Confederate Army. He ordered Lt. Harvey with six men to spy out the whereabouts of the Federal general. They found that the general was on his way to Macon but a detachment of bluecoats had been lurking about Lovejoy, Georgia. Harvey ordered his men to spread out and singly beat on the underbrush keeping in pistol shot of each other and if either of them saw an enemy to yell and charge. Very soon, a terrific war whoop was sounded, responded to from six different quarters. Then the lieutenant galloped up to the Federal captain and shouted, "captain, stack your arms immediately, I can’t restrain my men, you will be massacred." Arms were stacked and the six men and Lt. Harvey marched the whole detachment of bluecoats back as prisoners.

[Powers Papers Scrapbook, Mississippi Archives, p. 75]

The Scouts followed the Confederate Army in the disastrous march to Nashville and after its retreat, took the trail of Wilson on his famous raid through Alabama to Columbus, Georgia, where the brave Captain Harvey was murdered. The Captain came up to the man as he was in the act of stealing one of the Scout’s horses and ordered his arrest. The man broke out into abusive language and Captain Harvey knocked him down with his pistol. Not long afterwards, finding Capt. Harvey alone, he slipped up behind him and shot Harvey through the head. Harvey died instantaneously.

General Orders No. 11: Hdqrs. Jackson’s Cavalry Division near Sumterville, Ala, May 1, 1865. ‘Tis the sad duty of your division commander to announce the death of one of our most gallant and heroic officers. Capt. Addison Harvey, commanding scouts, was assassinated in Columbus, Ga., while in the discharge of his duty, assisting the commandant of the post in restoring order, by a citizen of that place, on the 19th instant. Serving with distinguished gallantry under General Johnston during the campaigns in Mississippi and Northern Georgia and again under General Hood in Tennessee, he won the confidence and esteem of all who knew him and received as a lasting mark of General Johnston’s appreciation of his services the proud appellation of the "young officer of great courage and sagacity." Prominent for all that distinguishes rising greatness, sagacity, courage, and intrepidity, combined with energy, perseverance , and that happy resort to expedients to meet sudden and great emergencies, his little band was rendered almost irresistible. During his military career he accomplished more brilliant results and rendered more valuable assistance and information than most officers with commands many times larger than his. To his company, so fondly attached to him by all the associations of close and intimate life; to the service, so much indebted for his concise, definite, and always accurate reports, and to society at large, of which he was one of the purest and brightest ornaments, his loss is irreparable. Peace to the ashes of this distinguished officer, whose death I join you in lamenting. By command of Brigadier-General Jackson: E. T. Sykes, Assistant Adjutant-General

Thus perished by the hand of an assassin, one who had passed unscathed through a hundred combats, a hero and patriot, a man whose military genius seemed like inspiration and yet never neglected any precaution to ensure success. He was buried at Columbus Georgia and his comrades spent the rest of the war without him.

His remains were removed from the soil of Georgia and re-interred in Canton’s new cemetery on Wednesday, the 8th day of December, 1886, at 11:00 O’clock a.m.

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