Evergreen Cemetery

Evergreen Cemetery. Confederate Circle. , The Confederate Circle at historic Evergreen Cemetery was established in 1890. The reburial of Confederate dead from across the county here took place the following year., Among those buried here is Robert James Campbell Gailbreath (1829–1863), a Jackson County native, attorney, and state representative (1855–1857). Gailbreath enlisted in 1861 as a private in Co. K, 8th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. He wrote his family on July 27, 1861, “I cannot say now, my Dear Family, when I will see you again, if ever, but should it be the will of God to cut me off from you, rest assured that you shall never be disgraced by any Conduct on my part in this War, for you and my Country.” He was elected second lieutenant in December, but resigned in May 1862, returned to Jackson County, organized Co. E, Murray’s 4th Tennessee Cavalry, and was elected its captain., Gailbreath and his unit, part of Gen. John A. Wharton’s cavalry brigade, camped near Nolensville late in 1862. Gailbreath wrote on December 18, “I have no idea when the big fight will come, but we look for it soon, which will decide the fate of Tennessee this winter.” The “big fight” was the Battle of Stones River, where on December 31 Gailbreath was wounded and captured. Surgeons amputated Galbreath’s right arm in Thomas Hord’s house on the Nashville Turnpike. He died there on January 12, 1863, and Hord buried him on the farm. After the war, his remains were removed first to a Confederate cemetery on Shelbyville Turnpike and then to the Confederate Circle here.