History of the Munford Family in Tennessee, Warren County

Thomas Bolling Munford invested in lands in Kentucky, for his sons, and four of them, James, Thomas, Richard Jones and William, when quite young men settled upon their respective plantations in that State when it was still called the wilderness. William moved toward the latter end of the last century and the others not long after, Richard giving his name to Munfordville on Green River. William married Lettice, a daughter of Thomas Ball, a prominent citizen of the vicinity of Danville, and for his young wife's sake purchased a farm adjoining that of his father-in-law. Here his family of nine children were born and only after the mother's death was the farm sold. This was while Edward was a very little boy, so young that while he remembers his mother's habit of taking his brother Richard, his little sister and himself to secret prayer three times every day and other evidences of her deep piety, he has only a dim recollection of her features or appearance. Through her he is related to the Marshall and Breckinridge families of Kentucky. His father brought Edward with him in 1835 to Tennessee on a visit to his daughters, Mrs. Dr. McCorkle and Mrs. James C. Jones (afterward governor), and his two sons, Thomas and William, who lived at Lebanon and in the immediate vicinity.

He died there in the following spring, leaving his young son to the guardianship of his brother William. At Lebanon he completed his interrupted studies under the late Rev. Thomas R. Anderson, who after its establishment became president of Cumberland College. Anderson was a famous educator, stern in appearance and bearing he was the terror of all bad boys, a number of whom were sent to him to be " broken in." To well inclined boys, however, no man could be more fatherly and kind. When the course of his studies ended and Edward was about leaving with his books Prof. Anderson called him back and said: "You are about to leave me; before you go I want to say something to you to be remembered. I am a judge of boys and you will make a man who will have a good deal to do with the world and the world with you. Now remember this in all your after life. 'If a man looks mean he is mean' and this he never forgot. At the age of sixteen years he began the study of his chosen profession, the law, under the late Judge Robert L. Caruthers, but after one year so spent removed with his guardian to Clarksville, Tennessee, where for two years more he prosecuted it under the accomplished lawyer, George C. Boyd. The Late senator, James E. Bailey, and himself were the only students Boyd would at that time accept saying that "most of the young men choosing the profession have no appreciation of its important and dignified duties and adopted it merely in the hope of leading lives of genteel vagabondage without labour." He had the spirit of the true lawyer, and inspired his two chosen proteges with his own aversion to pettifoggery, trickery and chicanery. Taking license at twenty at Mr. Boyd's earnest solicitation, he soon became involved in active practice. This so interfered with his regular studies that he adopted the plan of admitting no one to his office at night so that while the world slept he could dedicate the undisturbed hours to the acquisition of knowledge. For a long time four O'clock in the morning was his hour for going to sleep, and in the end paid most dearly the penalty of this violation of the laws of health.

In 1849 he married Amelia A.Watkins, daughter of Paul J. Watkins, of Alabama, wound up his business at Clarksville in 1850, and opened a law office in Memphis early in 1851, where he at once found full employment. Although his health was delicate his professional employment was such that his labours were unremitting and in 1853 he was advised by his physicians that he had but two choices, viz.: "go off to the country where neither books nor courthouses are, take all the outdoor exercise you can, or stay here and die." He went upon a farm, did his own overseeing and in less than two years was restored to health.

In the winter of 1854-55, being strongly urged to return to the city and this accompanied by the offer of a most advantageous partnership, his craving for mental occupation became irresistible and he resumed his practice there. In 1855 his young wife died leaving him a son and daughter, the latter following her mother in a few months. This was a blow almost too hard to be borne, for though books have always been a source of inestimable happiness to him yet his sweetest or his tenderest joys were found in the endearment's of home. He now lived for his boy, and his profession, which he pursued till 1860, when having amassed a sufficient fortune, he retired from business that he might devote himself to the education of his son. It was his purpose to take him to Europe where he could learn the languages of France and Germany.

The year 1860 was devoted to closing up, his affairs and the spring of 1861 fixed as the time of his departure. By that time, however, the political troubles of the country, he saw must result in a sectional war, and he remained to share the fortunes of the South. Nothing but an imperious sense of duty could have compelled this course, for up to that time he had opposed secession. He honestly believed the questions at issue should be settled by statesmanship and not the sword, and until Mr. Lincoln issued his proclamation for 75,000 men to invade the Southern States, he clung to the hope that some masterly genius in state-craft might, even amidst the wild confusions of the hour, devise some plan by which war might be averted and the true interests of the country subserved. When that proclamation appeared he saw that "the time for debate was ended and the time for action had come" and at once devoted his energies and much of his means to assist the South in the coming struggle.

When Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston assumed command of the Western Department he was announced in orders as a major on his staff and served by his side till his death on the field of Shiloh. Starting with the army of Bragg into Kentucky from Chattanooga in the fall of 1862 he was prostrated by disease and did not recover sufficiently to appear again in the field till the Dalton-Atlanta campaign under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. Lying sick in bed in southwestern Georgia a paper brought into his room announced the evacuation of Dalton without a battle realising that Gen. Johnston was short of men he started next day to rejoin the army and was so feeble that at about six miles on his journey, he was taken from his horse whilst in the act of falling off and laid in a roadside cabin for several days unable to rise. However he finally met the army below Resaca and served as well as his enfeebled condition permitted till after the battles of the 22d and 28th of July in defence of Atlanta when at the urgent solicitation of his superior officers he went to the city of Macon where all that kindest friends could do to alleviate his sufferings was done. His condition and positive refusal of an honourable discharge from service were represented to the president, who nominated him as one of the judges of Gen. Richard Taylor's Departmental Military Court with the rank of colonel of cavalry. The senate confirmed the appointment, and he served in that capacity till the surrender.

On being asked one day long since about his services during the war he laughingly replied: "Well, sir, since it now is all over I look back with pleasure upon the fact that I never killed more of the Yankees than they did of me, and as judge, never had a man either shot or hanged." His services, however, were more highly appreciated by others than they seem to have been by himself. Returning to Memphis after the war with a feeble frame, he eschewed all business and devoted himself to the restoration of his health and the care of the orphaned children of his brother, William, and their own and his sons' education.

In the fall of 1867 his health was so far restored as to justify his marriage, and in November of that year he espoused Mrs. Mary E. Gardner, widow of Lieutenant William Ross Gardner of Augusta, Georgia, formerly of the United States Navy. She was a lady of rare grace and culture, the model, as he said, for a gentleman's wife. Once more blessed with love and home his health grew gradually stronger, and in 1872 he was offered and accepted the presidency of A company composed for the most part of Northern men who purposed investing large sums of money in mineral interests in Tennessee. This led him to move to McMinnville. In that bracing and invigorating climate he built up and enjoyed comparatively good health, but did not hesitate to acknowledge that to his gentle, affectionate and intelligent wife he is more indebted for this blessing than to all else besides.

There possessed of ample fortune, and in the midst of picturesque scenery, friends and books, the evening of their lives was passed with more than the usual amount of human happiness. His conversation abounded in reminiscences of what he has read and whom he has known. He avowed that beyond doubt Albert Sidney Johnston was the greatest man he ever knew. He tells that since the war while he was a director in the Carolina Life Insurance Company, of which Hon. Jefferson Davis was president, one day in conversation he remarked that he believed Gen. Johnston was the ablest general the Confederacy had, when Mr. Davis with great animation, replied: "Ah, sir, he was the greatest man we had in or out of our army, the very greatest." Without doubt Col. Munford retained as one of his most cherished memories that of the confidence and friendship with which Gen. Johnston honoured him up to the hour of his death.