Gatlin, R. C. (Richard Caswell), 1809-1896

Gatlin, native of North Carolina, was an officer of the U.S. Army, 1828-1861, and then Confederate brigadier general.

From the description of R. C. Gatlin papers, 1744-1967 [manuscript]. WorldCat record id: 25224843

R. C. (Richard Caswell) Gatlin (1809-1896), native of North Carolina, was an officer of the United States Army, 1828-1861, and then Confederate brigadier general. Gatlin was born in Lenoir County, N.C. He was the third of five children of John Gatlin (1768-1836) and Susan Caswell (1775-1843), who was the daughter of Governor Richard Caswell of North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina, 1824-1825, and the United States Military Academy, 1828-1832. Upon his graduation from the Academy, he was appointed brevet lieutenant and assigned to the 7th Infantry at Fort Gibson, Arkansas Territory (now Oklahoma). Subsequently he served in the Second Seminole War, in the Mexican War, and in a number of the western territories. He was made brevet major for his gallant service at the Battle of Monterey during the Mexican War; and in February 1861 he was promoted to major and placed with the 5th Infantry.

In May 1861, he resigned from the United States Army in order to accept an appointment as brigadier general of the state forces of North Carolina. On 20 June 1861 he took charge of the defense of the North Carolina coast. On 20 August 1861, when North Carolina turned its forces over to the Confederacy, he was appointed brigadier general of the Confederate Army and commander of the Department of North Carolina. He remained in that position until March 1862, when, suffering from ill health, he was relieved of duty. He was blamed for the fall of Fort Hatteras and New Bern, N.C., but he maintained that he had made the best defense he could with the resources provided him. In September 1862 he resigned his Confederate commission, but he served as adjutant general of North Carolina until the end of the Civil War. After the war he returned to Arkansas and took up farming at Oakland Farm in Sebastian County.

Gatlin married Sciota Sandford in 1849. They had two sons, both of whom died young. Sciota herself died in 1852 at Fort Smith, Ark. In January 1857 Gatlin married Mary Ann Gibson (1836-1916), a native of Crawford County, Ark. She was the daughter of Robert Stuart Gibson (1800-1845) and Sarah Perkins Nicks (died 1862). Gatlin and Mary Ann had seven children, only two of whom lived to adulthood. These two were Susan Caswell, the eldest (born 1857), and Mary Knox, the youngest (born 1875). Susan Caswell Gatlin married John E. Corley of Fort Smith, Ark., in 1888. The Corleys subsequently moved to Seattle, Wash.; but, by 1910, Mr. Corley apparently had died and Susan was living with her mother in Little Rock, Ark., where Mrs. Gatlin had moved some time after her husband's death in 1896.

Mary Knox Gatlin attended St. Mary's School in Raleigh, N.C., (around 1894). She then lived with her mother at Fort Smith and Little Rock, Ark., until her marriage in November 1910 to Collier Cobb. Cobb was a distant cousin of the Gatlins, a widower with three children, and professor of geology at the University of North Carolina. After their marriage, Mary and he lived in Chapel Hill, N.C.

From the guide to the R. C. Gatlin Papers, 1744-1967, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)