Brigadier-General George Gibbs Dibrell
Brigadier-General George Gibbs Dibrell was born in White
county, Tenn., April 12, 1822. After receiving a common school
education, which was supplemented by one year at the East
Tennessee university, he engaged for a while in farming and
then in mercantile pursuits.
In 1861 he was elected to the Tennessee convention as a Union
delegate. But when his native State at last decided on
secession, like most of those who held similar views, he obeyed
the voice of the majority and was among the first to enlist
under the banner of the new Confederacy.
He entered the service as a private, but was elected
lieutenant-colonel of his regiment, receiving his commission as
such, August 10, 1861. In September of the same year he was
commissioned colonel of partisan rangers. In the reports of
the movements of Forrest's command, we find Colonel Dibrell's
name favorably mentioned on many occasions.
In one of many brilliant affairs in which Dibrell's regiment
participated, Col. R. G. Ingersoll is mentioned as one of the
captives. In March, 1863, General Bragg requested Forrest to
send a force to defend the manufacturing establishments at
Tuscumbia and Florence, Ala., against Federal raiders. Colonel
Dibrell's command was detached for this purpose, and on March
25th near Florence, he defeated two Union gunboats and a body
of raiders.
During the summer campaign of 1863, when Rosecrans was trying
to maneuver Bragg out of Tennessee, Forrest sent Dibrell to
reinforce Wheeler. Near Sparta, Tenn., they had a fierce fight
with the enemy, which, after varied fortune, was finally
decided in favor of the Confederates, who chased their
opponents for several miles and then returned to camp. They
found to their delight that the ladies of Sparta had cooked and
sent to the camp a fine breakfast for the entire command.
On the 26th of July, 1864, Colonel Dibrell received well-
merited promotion and was commissioned brigadier-general of
cavalry. He continued to sustain his high reputation in the
campaigns of Forrest and afterward of Wheeler. Toward the
close of the war he served in North Carolina.
After the fall of Richmond and the surrender of Lee's army he
had charge for a while of the Confederate archives. After the
long agony of war had ended he returned to his native State.
In 1870 he served in the Tennessee constitutional convention.
He was twice elected to Congress, and served from 1875 to 1879.
At Sparta, Tenn., in September, 1883, General Dibrell's old
cavalry command organized a brotherhood, officered with members
of his old regiment, the Eighth Tennessee. At their second
meeting, held at Gainesboro in 1884, the following commands
were added to the organization: The Eighth, Sixteenth,
Seventeenth, Twenty-fifth, Twenty- eighth and Thirty-fifth
Tennessee infantry and Colms' battalion, Hamilton's, Bledsoe's
and Bennett's battalions of cavalry.
General Dibrell commanded this "reunion brigade" up to his
death in 1886, and never failed to attend its meetings.
Source: Confederate Military History, vol. X, p. 305