Confederatevets.com

It is my sad privilege to announce to the remanant of that gallant throng who once marched so proudly beneath the Stars and Bars that another of their comrades has dropped from the ranks and joined the colors in the march triumphant on the other shore. The bugle has sounded its requiem, and the drum beat its last tattoo over all that was mortal of James L. McGann. He was born on the 17th of January, 1840 and died October 12, 1915. He celebrated his majority by enlisting as a soldier in the Confederate army and served as a member of Barteau's 2d Tennessee Regiment, Morton's Battery, Bell's Brigade, Jackson's Division, Forrest's Cavalry. He was personally engaged in the battles of Parker's Crossroads, Okolona, Fort Pillow, Memphis, Brice's Crossroads, Harrisburg, Johnsonville, Franklin, Athens, Sulphur Trestle, Iuka, Corinth, Bay Springs, Hood's Raid, Scottsville, and Gainesville. No soldier who followed the dauntless Forrest through his campaigns needs any one to attest to his courage or vouch for his loyalty. To be of Forrest's command was to laugh at danger and defy privations.

To the end of his life James McGann was true to the principles for which he fought. The Confederacy was a cause sacred to him, for its memories were among his most cherished recollections. In politics he was a Democrat of the old-time variety. He went astray after no new fads, no modern inventions of the catch-vote kind. As a citizen he was modest and retiring, as chivalrous and courteous as a Bayard, demanding that resect from all which he extended to all. He was a truthful man, scrupulously honest, loyal to friends as he was to principles, Having lived a life of seventy-five years in this community, he left it without a reproach upon his name. As a husband and father he was an example that all might follow. For years before his death his wife was an invalid, and during this time he waited upon her with a tenderness and devotion that was the admiration of all who saw it.

Captain McGann lived his life without ever having been confined to his bed by sickness, and when his end came he died without pain or fear of the future, He laid him down to his last sleep like "one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams." With sincere regard for the friendship that existed between us, it is in sadness that I place this humble tribute to his memory.

[J. W. Reid, Franklin, Tenn.]