General Tyree H. Bell's death

Mike Serpa

Major
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
Gen. George Moorman sent out from New Orleans, August 30, 1902, official orders as follows :
"It is with deep sorrow the General commanding announces to the United Confederate Veterans the death of Maj. Gen. Tyree H. Bell,
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ex-colonel of the Twelfth Tennessee Infantry, and brigadier general in Forrest's Cavalry Corps of the Confederate Army, and late major general commanding the Pacific Division, U. C. V.'s, which sad event occurred in this city at 10:40 o'clock p.m. this day at the sanitarium, to which place he was carried from the cars, where he was stricken down while en route from his old home in Tennessee to his later home in Fresno, Cal. Overpowered with heat, and on account of old age, the old hero (having passed the patriarchal age of three score and ten) failed to rally from the severe attack, and crossed over to join Forrest, Chalmers, Buford, Isham, Harrison, Mabry, Ross, Trezevant, Montgomery, Little, and all the rest of the rank and file of Forrest's historic command, of which he was one of the most conspicuous and gallant members...." (Emphasis added.)

Confederate Veteran, October 1902
https://archive.org/details/confederateveter1019conf/page/n427/mode/2up

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The Hickman Courier, 09/05/1902

Hard to believe a person would beat an 86-year-old man to death.
 
Gosh, that's an odd article! I'd always understood he died of a brain aneurysm - his death certificate says 'intra-cranial pressure'. Well...I suppose if someone whacked you on the head, that would be a result! He was an important and relatively unknown asset for Forrest and had the nickname "Forrest's Right Hand". Tennessee proved to be an unprofitable place for him, so he relocated to Fresno, Ca where he took up tomato raising.
 
A biography of Bell calls him "supernumerary".

I wouldn't agree with that, but he was much needed by Forrest the last two years of the war. He was steady, reliable and somebody Forrest could always count on. That was something of a rare thing for him! He was also a bullet magnet. Shot four or five times over the course of the war and lost an eye. He was part of a movement of Southern planters to start farming colonies in southern California - an interesting enterprise on its own. Cotton didn't grow but wheat and tomatoes did! He's buried in Sanger, California.
 
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