March 31

He captured the highest-ranking Union officer taken prisoner during the Civil War.

Alfred Iverson, Jr., was born in 1829 in Clinton, Georgia, in Jones County. He was just 17 when he joined his father’s volunteer cavalry regiment in the Mexican War. Like so many, when his native state seceded, Iverson traded stars and stripes for stars and bars, and resigned his U.S. Army commission to join the Confederacy.

He fought in every major campaign of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and earned his brigadier general’s stars after his service at Antietam in 1862. His command was cut to pieces on the first day at Gettysburg when Lee invaded Pennsylvania. Back in Georgia in 1864 during the Atlanta campaign, Iverson had his greatest moment: with only half the forces the Union had, he captured U.S. Major General George Stoneman near Macon.

This United States senator’s son and U.S. Army veteran who served the Confederacy with distinction died on March 31, 1911, Today in Georgia History.