Bowles, Col. Pickney Downey
Pickney Downey Bowles is a native of South Carolina, and was born in Edgefield District, date of birth I do not know, but even at this date, 1891, he is not an old man. He read law with General Sam. McGowan. He received his educational training at the Citadel, in Charleston, and at the University of Virginia. He went to Alabama in 1859, and into the office of Honorable James A. Stallworth, whose father also was a native of Edgefield. He remained in Mr. Stallworth's office until the beginning of the war. In 1860 he was elected Colonel of the Twenty-eighth Alabama Militia, and Second Lieutenant in the Conecuh guards. In January, 1861, he went with his company to Pensacola, Florida. When they returned home, upon re-organization, he was elected Captain and went as such with the company to Virginia. He soon became Colonel of the regiment, and was its brave and faithful commander during almost the whole of the war. He led his regiment into nearly all the battles fought in Virginia. They fought at the First Battle of Manassas, under General Bee. They were in the battles of Seven Pines, Cold Harbor, Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Boonesboro, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Suffolk. They were in the invasion of Pennsylvania and in the awful conflict at Gettysburg. They went with Longstreet to reinforce Bragg in North Georgia, returned by Knoxville through East Tennessee, rejoined the army of Virginia, and fought in the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania. Again, they were engaged at Second Cold Harbor, and lay for ten months behind the defences of Petersburg, sharing in all the movements and assaults of that period. At last crippled, broken, depleted by death and wounds and sickness, they, the remnant of the Regiment, Fourth Alabama, surrendered at Appomattox two hundred and two men. Throughout all this period Colonel Bowles was always at the head of his regiment, with only one respite for a little while, in February, 1863, when he went home to be married to Miss Stearns, daughter of Judge Stearns. Towards the close of the war he was acting as Brigadier, having command of five regiments; though, in fact, he never received a commission as Brigadier.
When he returned home he had fifty cents in his pocket, but he immediately resumed the practice of the law and did well. In 1866 he was elected county Solicitor for Conecuh County, which position he held for a long time. His home was at Evergreen in 1881. Whether he is now living, 1891, I do not know.
REF: Caldwell - History of Edgefield County pg. 153
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