Ghastly hand to hand conflict between British soldiers and frontiersmen with General Andrew Jackson. The last major battle of the War of 1812 was the Battle of New Orleans. On January 8th 7,500 British soldiers marched against 4,500 U.S. troops led by General Andrew Jackson. The British were defeated in just 30 minutes. The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war, had been signed two weeks before, but the news had not yet crossed the Atlantic.
Next Sunday, November 6th several patriotic groups are planning a War of 1812 Patriot Grave Dedication for James H. Gee (1799-1883) in East Mount Cemetery at 2:00 P.M. The public is invited.
James Gee was born earlier than any other male in a marked grave in the cemetery. Several women are buried there who were born earlier, including his mother-in-law; Margaret S. Hawkins (1779-1859) wife of Brig. General Caleb Hawkins. But James H. Gee holds the distinction of being the only veteran of the War of 1812 buried in Greenville.
Gee, a fifteen-year-old musician in Captain Lewis Delahanty’s Company of the Tennessee Militia, served as a substitute for Joseph Woods. On November 13, 1814 he enlisted for six months at Nashville in General Andrew Jackson’s Army. The men boarded boats to float down the Mississippi, landing four miles north of New Orleans. The battle lasted for weeks in January 1815.
By spring of that year, Jackson began sending his troops north to Nashville for discharge. James H. Gee received his papers on May 13, 1815, exactly six months after he enlisted.
Not much is known about Gee until his marriage to Ann W. Hawkins in Lauderdale County, Alabama in 1826. By 1855 the large family was in Carroll County, Tennessee where James H. Gee received two 80-acre bounty land warrants under the Act of 1852. There he served as District Clerk and county surveyor. In November 1859, Gee and his family arrived in Greenville, in Hunt County, Texas in covered wagons.
A few weeks after their arrival in Greenville, Gee’s mother-in-law passed away. By 1860 his wife, Ann W. Gee was a schoolteacher at the Masonic Lodge supported school. When the first Confederate unit left Hunt County, daughter Lucy Gee presented the men with a flag and good wishes on their endeavor. Lucy was quite a beauty and many a man dreamed of her on the way to battle. Unfortunately, the flag bearer panicked in one battle and took off with the banner. Neither banner nor flag bearer were ever seen again.
The Federal government agreed in 1873 to issue pensions to surviving veterans of the War of 1812. James H. Gee filed the requisite applications with several character witnesses from prominent local men. The paperwork was processed in a timely manner in Washington, D. C. However, it was returned with the statement that while he had honorably served the United States in the War of 1812, he was disloyal to the government. Therefore, the pension was denied.
What happened? James H. Gee was the father of at least one Confederate soldier. His fifth son, Thomas Jefferson Gee, served as a scout in Company F, Third Texas Cavalry, Governor Ross’ Brigade. The War Department made a thorough check of confiscated Confederate records before issuing pensions. Anyone with the same surname as a Rebel in the same county was denied federal funds.
The Dallas Weekly Herald of August 2, 1883 eulogized James H. Gee by saying he died after living in Texas for over forty years. Gee was “a man held in high esteem by everybody.” A fitting tribute for a War of 1812 veteran and a leader of Greenville.