Abram Fulkerson

Abram Fulkerson (May 13, 1834 – December 17, 1902) was a Virginia lawyer and politician. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates, as well as the U.S. House of Representatives.

Family, Early Life, and the Civil War

Fulkerson was born on May 13, 1834 in Washington County, Virginia, to Abram Fulkerson, Sr. (b. April 3, 1789 in Lee County, Virginia, bpt. 21 Apr 1791) and Margaret Laughlin Vance (1796-1864). His father, Abram, Sr., was a captain and commanded a company of Virginia Militia in Colonel David Sanders Regiment, 4th Brigade, Norfolk Division of Gen. Peter B. Porter, during the War of 1812. His grandfather, James Fulkerson, who had been a Captain in the Virginia Militia, joined with the Overmountain Men and fought the British at the Battle of Kings Mountain during the American Revolution.

Abram, Jr. graduated from the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington in 1857, where he was a student of Prof. Thomas Jonathan Stonewall Jackson. According to his records at VMI, he had a reputation for being a prankster and wore an "outlandish collar" on his cadet uniform: the collar being the only part of the uniform not covered under regulations. After graduation, he taught school in Palmyra, Virginia, and Rogersville, Tennessee, until the beginning of the American Civil War.

Fulkerson entered Confederate military service in June 1861 as a Captain, having organized a company of men from Hawkins County, Tennessee that was inducted into the 19th Tennessee Infantry Regiment as Company K at Knoxville. His was the first company of volunteers organized in East Tennessee. He was elected as Major of the 19th Tennessee Infantry Regiment. He was wounded in the thigh and his horse was shot from under him at the Battle of Shiloh and was reassigned in the resulting reorganization to the 63rd Tennessee Infantry after recovering from his injury. He was elected as Lieutenant Colonel of the 63rd, and was later promoted to full colonel by President Jefferson Davis on February 12, 1864.

In 1862, he was granted a furlough and went to Clarksville, Tennessee and married his fiance, Selina Johnson. They were barely married in time to escape the Union Army's advance on Clarksville.

While in the 63rd, he was wounded twice more: in the left arm at the Battle of Chickamauga and again at the Second Battle of Petersburg, Virginia (Battle of Petersburg II), the regiment having been reassigned from the Army of Tennessee to the Army of Northern Virginia, where he was taken prisoner on June 17, 1864 and sent to the POW camp at Fort Delaware. While a POW, Fulkerson was included in a group that became known as the Immortal Six Hundred, which consisted of 520 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 used similarly at Charleston. [ cite web | url = http://www.nps.gov/fopu/historyculture/the-immortal-six-hundred.htm | title = The Immortal Six Hundred | publisher = National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior | accessdate=2008-07-16 ] Though none of the Immortal Six Hundred were killed by the continuing Confederate artillery fire from Fort Sumter, 14 of the Confederate officers died as a result of dystentery and unsanitary conditions. After Morris Island, he was taken to Fort Pulaski and placed on starvation rations in retaliation for alleged prisoner abuses at Andersonville. He was later transferred back to Fort Delaware in March 1865 where he was held until he was discharged and paroled on July 25, 1865, more than three months after General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.

At the close of the war he studied law and was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Goodson, later known as Bristol, Virginia, in 1866 with the firm of York & Fulkerson.

Two of Fulkerson's brothers also saw service in the Confederate Army: Samuel Vance Fulkerson (1822-1862), who had been a lawyer and Circuit Court judge prior to the war, was the colonel of the 37th Virginia Infantry and was killed at the Battle of Gaines' Mill during the Seven Days Battles, and Isaac Fulkerson (c. 1829-July 20, 1889) was a captain in the 8th Texas Cavalry (Terry's Texas Rangers).

Political career

Fulkerson was elected as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, serving from 1871 to 1873. Next he served in the State senate of Virginia 1877-1879. He was elected as a Readjuster Democrat from Virginia's 9th U.S. Congressional District to the Forty-seventh Congress (March 4, 1881-March 3, 1883). Fulkerson was a Democrat, but assisted in organizing the Readjuster Party, after which he returned to the Democratic Party.

Fulkerson resumed the practice of law after leaving Congress. He was again elected to the State House of Delegates in 1888. He was a delegate to the Democratic National (Gold) Convention in 1896.

Death and legacy

Fulkerson died in Bristol, Virginia, on December 17, 1902 at the age of 68, and was buried there in East Hill Cemetery.

References

*CongBio|F000402 Retrieved on 2008-02-13
* Worsham, Dr. W. J., "The Old Nineteenth Tennessee Regiment C.S.A.", The Guild Bindery Press, 1992.
* Fowler, John D., "Mountaineers in Gray: The Nineteenth Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Regiment, C.S.A.", The University of Tennessee Press, 2004, ISBN 1-57233-314-6.
* Obituary for Abram Fulkerson, Confederate Veteran Magazine, 1903. http://www.fulkerson.org/1-abe1.html
* Samuel Vance Fulkerson. http://www.fulkerson.org/1-samv1.html
* James Fulkerson. http://www.fulkerson.org/james.html

External links

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Persondata
NAME=Fulkerson, Abram
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Virginia lawyer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH=May 13, 1834
PLACE OF BIRTH=Washington County, Virginia
DATE OF DEATH=December 17, 1902
PLACE OF DEATH=Bristol, Virginia