Person

Gideon Johnson Pillow (Maury County, Tennessee, planter and soldier)

b. 1806-06-08 d. 1878-10-08

Maury County, Tennessee, planter and soldier. Williamson County, Tennessee, native. Married to Mary Elizabeth Martin Pillow on March 24, 1831. Father of Gideon F. Pillow, Mary A. Pillow, George M. Pillow, Narcissa C. Pillow, Martha E. Pillow, Margaret A. Pillow, Sallie P. Pillow, Gertrude S. Pillow, A. D. Pillow, and R. G. Pillow. Graduated from the University of Nashville in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1827. Studied law and admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1830. Moved to Columbia, Tennessee, to practice law. Co-editor of the Diggest and Re-vision of the Statute Laws of Tennessee. Adjutant general and brigadier general for the Tennessee State Militia in 1833. Brigadier general of U.S. Volunteers in 1846. Veteran of the Mexican-American War. Promoted to major general by President James K. Polk. Planter in Maury County in 1850. Owned seventy-five enslaved persons in Maury County in 1850. Planter in Maury County in 1860. Owned eighty-one enslaved persons in Maury County in 1860. Senior major general of the provisional army of the State of Tennessee upon secession in 1861. Brigadier general in the Provisional Army of the Confederacy in July 1861. Head of the Tennessee volunteer and conscript bureau from 1863 to 1864. Commissary general of prisoners in February 1865.

Details

Sex
Male
Race
White

Bibliography

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Population Schedules, Tennessee, Maury County, District No. 12, p. 354B. Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Slave Schedules, Tennessee, Maury County, District No. 12. Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Tennessee, Maury County, District No. 9, p. 73. Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Tennessee, Maury County, District No. 9, p. 29-30. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959), 241. Ed Frank, "Gideon Johnson Pillow" in The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, Carroll Van West, ed., http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1060, (Accessed on March 30, 2018). Nathaniel C. Hughes Jr. and Roy P. Stonesifer Jr., The Life and Wars of Gideon J. Pillow (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993). Find A Grave, "Gen. Gideon Johnson Pillow (1806-1878)," Memorial #11052, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11052/gideon-johnson-pillow (accessed March 30, 2018).

Citation

Pillow, Gideon Johnson. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, https://discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/S32212207 (November 12, 2026).

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