Stevens, Brig. Gen. Clement Hoffman

Brigadier-General Clement Hoffman Stevens was born in Norwich, Conn., August 14, 1821, the son of Lieut. Clement W. Stevens, United States navy, and Sarah J. Fayssoux, daughter of Dr. Peter Fayssoux, surgeon-general of the army in South Carolina during the war of the revolution. Not long after his birth the father left the navy and the family settled in Florida, but removed to Pendleton, S.C., at the outbreak of Indian troubles in 1836. In youth he served for several years as private secretary to his kinsmen, Commodore William B. Shubrick and Capt. Edward Shubrick. In 1842 he abandoned this service at sea, and became an official of the Planters and Mechanics bank at. Charleston, of which he was cashier at the period of secession. In January, 1861, he presented to Gen. David F. Jamison, secretary of war for the State, a design he had prepared for an ironclad battery, and it being approved, he immediately began the erection of an armored battery of two guns on Cummings point, known as the Stevens' iron battery. It was built of heavy yellow pine timber with great solidity, and the face, inclined at an angle of forty degrees, was covered with bars of railroad iron. In this protected battery, which was of service in the bombardment of Fort Sumter, was the germ of the armored ship Virginia, and her class. The floating battery designed by Lieut. J. R. Hamilton, in use at the same time, approached still more closely the plan of the famous ironclad of Hampton Roads. General Stevens' mechanical ingenuity was later shown in the invention of portable ovens, by the use of which his regiment was supplied with excellent bread. Stevens next served as volunteer aide to his cousin, Gen. Barnard E. Bee, at the battle of First Manassas, and was severely wounded. Returning home, as soon as he had recovered from his wound he took charge of a militia regiment at Charleston, but soon joined in the organization of the Twenty-fourth regiment, of which he was elected colonel. In the winter of 1861-62 he was for some time on duty as aide to General Ripley. In the fight at Secessionville he commanded the Confederate forces on the field. In December, 1862, he was assigned to command one of the brigades to be sent under General Gist for the support of Wilmington, and in May, 1863, he and his regiment were ordered to Mississippi under the brigade command of Gist. With the forces collected under Gen. J. E. Johnston he participated in the summer campaign of that year for the relief of Vicksburg, and the defense of Jackson against Sherman, and subsequently joined the army at Chattanooga. At the battle of Chickamauga he was actively engaged until two horses were killed under him and he was wounded. Gist alluded to him as the "iron-nerved," and General Walker reported "that the gallant Stevens, who was severely wounded, from what I know of his capacity as an officer, from his gallantry on the field, and from his devotion to the cause, would grace any position that might be conferred." January 20, 1864, he was promoted to brigadier-general, and was assigned to the command of a Georgia brigade, formerly known as Wilson's, of Walker's division, which he led with distinction throughout the Atlanta campaign, until he was killed in the battle of July 20, 1864, near the city of Atlanta.

REF: Confederate Military History Vol. 5, pg. 17 Confederate Military History Vol. 5, pg. 420

Stevens, Major Peter F.