My Genealogy Hound

G. T. DODSON, an enterprising farmer of the Twenty-fourth District, was born January 29, 1835, in Wilson County, Tenn., and is one of six children born to I. J. and Octavia (Ballard) Dodson. The father was born in 1808 in Tennessee, and was of Scotch-Irish extraction. He was married in 1829, and in 1850 moved to Wilson County and tilled the soil until his death, which occurred August 5, 1853. The mother was born in 1813, in Wilson County, and was the daughter of George Ballard. Her death occurred in 1842. The subject of this sketch was reared in the Twenty-fourth District, and received the rudiments of his education in the country schools and subsequently attended college three terms. He soon purchased 180 acres of land in the Eleventh District, and May 12, 1857, he wedded Sarah J. Edwards, daughter of James Edwards. Mrs. Dodson died October 5, 1871, and April 7, 1881, he was married to Maggie A. Eatherly. Mr. Dodson is the father of two children: Stonewall Jackson, born May 21, 1866 (who has received a thorough English education, and will take a collegiate course, and will then study law), and Kate, who was born September 13, 1883. In 1861 our subject volunteered in the Confederate service, and was elected captain of the Forty-fourth Tennessee (under Col. J. S. Fulton). He was in the battles of Shiloh and Murfreesboro, received a gun-shot wound, and was captured and taken to Fort Delaware, where he remained for six months, when he was exchanged at Petersburg, Va. He came back, enlisted again, was at Richmond, Petersburg and Knoxville, and was with Lee at Appomattox Court House at the time of the surrender. He then returned home and engaged in farming and stock raising, He is a Democrat in politics and a good man.