The Colonel Writes from Cumberland Gap :
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Abram Fulkerson was born on May 13, 1834, in Washington County, Virginia. His grandfather, James Fulkerson, had served as a Captain, in the Virginia Militia during the American Revolution, joining with the Over-mountain Men and fighting the British at the Battle of Kings Mountain. His father, Abram Fulkerson Sr., had served during the War of 1812 as a captain of a Virginia Militia company in Colonel David Sanders' Regiment, 4th Brigade, Norfolk Division under Gen. Peter B. Porter. Fulkerson graduated from the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington in 1857, where he was a student of Prof. Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, as had been his elder brother Samuel Vance Fulkerson (1822-1862), who had served in the Mexican–American War and as a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850. Samuel was killed in action leading the 37th Virginia Infantry at the Battle of Gaines Mill. Another brother, Isaac Fulkerson (1829-July 20, 1889), was a captain in the 8th Texas Cavalry (Terry's Texas Rangers). After graduation, Abram taught school in Palmyra, Virginia, then in 1860 in Rogersville, Hawkins County, (east) Tennessee.
He entered Confederate military service in June 1861 as a Captain, having organized a company of men from Hawkins County, Tennessee, that was mustered into the 19th Tennessee Infantry Regiment as Company K (The Hawkins Boys) at Knoxville, Tennessee. His was the first company of volunteers organized in East Tennessee, and Abram Fulkerson received a commission as the regiment's Major. He was wounded in the thigh and his horse shot from under him at the Battle of Shiloh. After recovery and the unit's reorganization, he was reassigned to the 63rd Tennessee Infantry. Commissioned as Lieutenant Colonel of the 63rd, and President Jefferson Davis on February 12, 1864, commissioned him as a full Colonel.
Abram Fulkerson twice helped garrison the Cumberland Gap: first with the 19th Tennessee then with the 63rd Tennessee. On May 18, 1863, while at Cumberland Gap, he penned a letter to his wife in which he noted that he was visited there by President Jefferson Davis:
"One of our pickets came in the other day and reported that a Mr. Davis was at the lines and desired to enter. This report took me very much by surprise, for although you had mentioned the probability of his coming yet I did not look for him. He only stayed a few hours. After dinner (a very poor one without apology to him) I went [around] to show him some of the curiosities of Cumberland Gap, which he seemed to think would compensate anyone for making the visit. He went back up the valley and expected to get home by Wednesday next".
In the same letter, he addressed the news of General Stonewall Jackson's death:
"The intelligence of the death of Gen. Jackson came upon us like a shock. We feel that his death is a national calamity. The poorest soldiers among us appreciated his worth - loved the man, and mourn his loss. I knew him well. He was my preceptor for more than four years and whilst during that time I did not appreciate the man, at school, as schoolboys are not like to do, yet I always had great reverence for the man on account of his piety & uprightness of character. Among the many heroes of this revolution, none have lived so much adored, none have died a death so much deplored, and none have left a character as spotless as that of Stonewall Jackson. Could his life have been spared till the close of this cruel war, the unanimous voice of a grateful people would have proclaimed him chief ruler of the nation. But God has seen proper to take him from us, and what He does is right and for the best. It is therefore that we make the sacrifice cheerfully, tho we cannot see why our country should be deprived of his services at her hour of greatest need".
While with the 63rd, Fulkerson was wounded twice more: in the left arm at the Battle of Chickamauga and again at the Second Battle of Petersburg, Virginia the regiment having returned to the Army of Northern Virginia with Longstreet's Corps from East Tennessee. He was taken prisoner on June 17, 1864, and sent to the POW camp at Fort Delaware. While a POW, Fulkerson became part of the Immortal Six Hundred, 600 captured Confederate officers who were taken to Morris Island at Charleston, South Carolina and used as human shields by the Union Army for six weeks in an attempt to silence the Confederate gunners at Fort Sumter, in response to Union officer prisoners being placed among civilians to stop Union gunners from firing into downtown Charleston.[6] Though none of the Immortal Six Hundred were killed by the continuing Confederate artillery fire from Fort Sumter, 14 died of dysentery.
After Morris Island, Fulkerson was taken to Fort Pulaski and placed on starvation rations for 42 days in retaliation for Confederate prisoner abuses at Andersonville. Crowded into the fort's cold, damp casements, the Confederates' "retaliation ration" consisted of 10 ounces of moldy cornmeal and a half pint of soured onion pickles. The starving men supplemented their rations with the occasional rat or stray cat. Thirteen men died there of preventable diseases such as dysentery and scurvy.
In March 1865 Fulkerson was returned to Fort Delaware, where he was discharged and paroled on July 25, 1865, months after General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
After Fulkerson returned home, his horse that he rode during his military service, whose official name was "Zollicoffer" (after former newspaper editor, Congressman, and early casualty among the Confederate Officer Corp, Felix Zollicoffer), was returned to him. Fulkerson kept the horse for the rest of its life, but called him "Old Bob." When the horse died, former Confederates from the Bristol area assembled and conducted a military funeral for it. In 1885, Stonewall Jackson's horse, "Little Sorrel," was brought to Bristol on a tour and Fulkerson rode it and was photographed as a number of former veterans assembled to pay their respects.
Fulkerson died in Bristol, Virginia, on December 17, 1902, at the age of 68, of complications after suffering a stroke. He was buried there in East Hill Cemetery in Sullivan County, (east) Tennessee.
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The Colonel holds the reins of “Little Sorrel.”