John Malachi Bowden (1840-1920) was born on June 28, 1840, in Meriwether County, Georgia. He was the fourth of 16 children born to Mary Anne and John Culpepper Bowden. He attended Collinsworth Institute before leaving early to enlist as a private in Company B, 2nd Regiment of the Georgia Volunteer Infantry, Army of Northern Virginia on August 26, 1861. He was captured by Union forces on September 28, 1864, at Fort Gilmore. He was held in Maryland at Point Lookout Prison for six months and was finally paroled on March 17, 1865. After the war he became a Methodist Minister and married Eliza Lemon Afiers on May 3, 1870. They had nine children. John Malachi Bowden lived in Thomson, Georgia until his wife's death on April 14, 1911, whereupon he moved into his son's home in an unidentified location in Georgia. He died on May 21, 1920.
From the description of John Malachi Bowden Civil War Memoirs. (Atlanta History Center). WorldCat record id: 441492272
