James Battle Avirett

James Battle Avirett (March 12, 1835 – February 16, 1912) was an American Confederate chaplain and author. He was the first chaplain commissioned to serve in the Confederate States Army in 1861.[1] His The Old Plantation: How We Lived in Great House and Cabin before the War, published in 1901 was a nostalgic description of life on a plantation in the Antebellum South. By the time of his death, he was "the last surviving Confederate chaplain."[2]

James Battle Avirett
BornMarch 12, 1835
Richlands, Onslow County, North Carolina, U.S.
DiedFebruary 16, 1912 (1912-02-17) (aged 76)
Cumberland, Maryland, U.S.
Resting placeWinchester, Virginia, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
ChildrenJohn W. Avirett, Philip W. Avirett
Parent(s)John Alfred Averitt
Serena Thomas

Early life

James Battle Avirett was born on March 12, 1835 in Richlands, North Carolina.[3] On his paternal side, he was of German-Huguenot descent.[4] His father, John Alfred Alvirett, was a large planter and sheriff of Onslow County, North Carolina.[4] He grew up on the Avirett-Stephens Plantation.[3]

Avirett attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1850 to 1852.[3] He was ordained as an Episcopal priest by Bishop William Meade in 1861.[3]

Career

Avirett was a priest of the Episcopal Church.[3] During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, he served as a chaplain in the Confederate States Army in Alabama, under General Turner Ashby.[2][5][6] He was the first chaplain to be commissioned to serve in the CSA in 1861.[1]

Avirett served as the president of the Dunbar Institute, an Episcopal female seminary in Winchester, Virginia from 1865 to 1871.[3] For the next twenty-five years, he was a priest in Sligo, North Carolina, Upper Marlboro and Silver Spring, Maryland,[5] followed by Waterville, New York.[3] He served as the rector of St Paul's Church Louisburg, North Carolina from 1894 to 1899.[7]

Avirett was the author of several books. As early as 1867, he wrote a memoir of General Turner Ashby, after he had given a speech about Ashby at the University of Virginia.[8] By 1897, he wrote two religious pamphlets.

Avirett published The Old Plantation: How We Lived in Great House and Cabin before the War in 1901.[3][5] He had been encouraged to write about plantation life by Senator Zebulon Baird Vance. Prefaced by Hunter McGuire, it was presented as a response to Uncle Tom's Cabin.[9] For David Anderson, a Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Political Studies at Swansea University, the book was emblematic of nostalgic memoirs about the Old South, which was lost forever except in writing and memories.[10] However, David Goldfield, a Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, suggests that it was "much less a re-creation of plantation life than a fantasy, part of the full-blown rehabilitation of the Old South that had been underway since the end of Reconstruction."[11]

Avirett was a regular contributor to the Cumberland Evening Times, a newspaper in Cumberland, Maryland.[5]

Personal life

Avirett married Mary Louise Dunbar Williams of Winchester, Virginia, in 1862.[6] His wife was a driving force in the establishment of the Stonewall Cemetery,[6] a Confederate cemetery near the Mount Hebron Cemetery and Gatehouse in Winchester, Virginia. The couple had two sons, John Williams Avirett (1863 - 1914), who was the owner of the Cumberland Evening Times, and Philip Williams Avirett (1867 - 1902), a lawyer and newspaper editor.[5][1]

Death

Avirett died on February 16, 1912 in Cumberland, Maryland.[3][5] By the time of his death, he was the last surviving Confederate chaplain.[2] He was buried in Winchester, Virginia.[3]

Bibliography
  • The Memoirs of General Turner Ashby and His Compeers (1867).
  • Watchman, What of the Night? or The Causes Affecting Church Growth (1897).
  • Who Was the Rebel ? (1897).
  • The Old Plantation: How We Lived in Great House and Cabin before the War (1901).

References
  1. "Col. Avirett Died Suddenly". The Charlotte News. Charlotte, North Carolina. May 29, 1914. p. 1. Retrieved December 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. "Last Surviving Chaplain of the Confederate Army, Dr. James Battle Avirett, Is Dead". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Cincinnati, Ohio. February 17, 1912. p. 4. Retrieved December 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. Littleton, Tucker Reed. "Avirett, James Battle by Tucker Reed Littleton, 1979". NCPedia. State Library of North Carolina. Retrieved December 26, 2015.
  4. Cecelski, David (2000). An Historian's Coast Adventures into the Tidewater Past. Winston-Salem, North Carolina: John F. Blair, Publisher. ISBN 9780895871893. Retrieved December 26, 2015.
  5. "Rev. Dr. Avirett Dead. Probably Last Surviving Chaplain in the Confederate Army". The Washington Herald. Washington, D.C. February 17, 1912. p. 7. Retrieved December 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. "Honor Them. A Sacred Duty to Perform. Four Hundred Unmarked Confederate Graves--North Carolinians Who Lie Buried in Winchester, Va.--An Effort Made to Properly Mark the Resting Place of These Heroes". The Henderson Gold Leaf. Henderson, North Carolina. October 24, 1895. p. 1. Retrieved December 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. "Louisburg Loses Mr. Avirett". The Franklin Times. Louisburg, North Carolina. May 26, 1899. p. 3. Retrieved December 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. Anderson, Paul Christopher (2006). Blood Image: Turner Ashby in the Civil War and the Southern Mind. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press. p. 13. ISBN 9780807131619. Retrieved December 26, 2015.
  9. "Uncle Tom's Cabin". The Carolina Mascot. Statesville, North Carolina. September 14, 1899. p. 1. Retrieved December 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. Anderson, David (February 2005). "Down Memory Lane: Nostalgia for the Old South in Post-Civil War Plantation Reminiscences". The Journal of Southern History. 71 (1): 105–136. JSTOR 27648653.
  11. Goldfield, David R. (2004). Still Fighting the Civil War: The American South and Southern History. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press. p. 21. ISBN 9780807129609. Retrieved December 26, 2015.
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