James D. Porter, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 7.1, Tennessee
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

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[298] accession of Tennessee to the Southern Confederacy. At the battle of Fort Donelson (February 14-16, 1862) we find Colonel Brown commanding the Third brigade of General Buckner's division, and acting a conspicuous part in the charge which opened the way for the retreat of the Confederate army to Nashville. The fact that the opportunity was not improved detracts nothing from the gallant achievement of the men who made that brilliant charge. When, on the 16th, the fort was surrendered, Colonel Brown became a prisoner of war and remained in the enemy's hands for six months. Shortly after his exchange he was commissioned as brigadier-general (August 30, 1862). He participated in the Kentucky campaign, and was wounded at the battle of Perryville, October 8, 1862; with his usual gallantry fought at Chickamauga, where he was again wounded, and recovered in time to act an heroic part at Missionary Ridge. In all the movements of the Dalton-Atlanta campaign he was distinguished, and on the 4th of August, 1864, he was commissioned major-general. In Hood's gallant but disastrous effort to retrieve the waning fortunes of the Confederacy by his Tennessee campaign, General Brown was again among the foremost, commanding Cheatham's division. In the fierce charge at Franklin, in which so many of the choicest spirits of the army of Tennessee laid down their lives, he was severely wounded. At the close of the war he resumed the practice of law at Pulaski, Tenn. He was a member of the constitutional convention which met at Nashville in 1870, and was elected president of that body. The next year he was elected governor of the State, being the first Democrat chosen to that position after the war. He was the second member of his family to be thus honored, his brother, Neil S. Brown, having been governor from 1847 to 1849. One of the leading issues of Governor Brown's administration was the State debt, which at the beginning of his term amounted to $43,000,000 bonded, besides a large