Confederate Veteran Magazine – June 1923

Lieut. Joel C. Archer died at his home in Granbury, Tex., on January 28, 1923, aged eighty-three years. He was born in Macon County, Ga., April 15, 1839, and at the age of fifteen years he moved to Alabama with the family. He was educated at Columbia Institute and read law at North Point, Ala., and secured a license to practice, but abandoned the profession and taught school several terms in that section.

In 1861 he joined Captain Steel’s company of Confederate infantry, organized at North Point. It being a twelve-month volunteer company, it was not received, and he continued to go to school after the company was disbanded until 1862, then joined Captain Lumsden’s artillery company at Tuscaloosa and went to Fort Gaines in Mobile Bay. After the battle of Shiloh he was sent to Corinth, Miss.; was with General Bragg in his Kentucky campaign, participating in the battles of Perryville, Murfreesboro, and Chickamauga. He was wounded in the last-named battle and sent to Marietta, Ga., and on recovery was furloughed. He rejoined his regiment at Tunnel Hill; was promoted to third lieutenant after Chickamauga, and was in all the campaigns under Joseph E. Johnston from Dalton to Atlanta. He was captured at Atlanta and sent to Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie, where he remained in prison till the close of the war.

After the war he practiced law and taught school in Alabama until 1869, when he went to Texas, finally locating permanently in Hood County, where he was married to Miss Nancy Elizabeth Arrington on December 24, 1874. He taught for a time and then engaged in farming and stock raising the remainder of his active life. He served a number of years as justice of the peace in his precinct. Mr. Archer had long been a member of the Methodist Church and was a charter member of the Granbury Camp of Confederate Veterans.

Joel C. Archer and Nancy Arrington Archer were buried in Granbury Cemetery in Hood County, Texas.

~ Web Page by Virginia Hale ~

Confederate Veteran Magazine – June 1923

2002 HOOD COUNTY TEXAS GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY