Allen S. Cutts served as a Confederate colonel of artillery in the American Civil War.
Pre-War
Allan Sherod Cutts was born in Pulaski County, Georgia on December 4, 1826. He was the twelfth and last child of Major Cutts, a farmer born in North Carolina, and Elizabeth Linsey Cutts, born in Indiana. Allen S. Cutts was raised on the farms his father occupied in Georgia. After receiving a basic education, he served in the Mexican War as a sergeant in an artillery unit from 1846 to 1848. Sgt Cutts served in the Battle of Vera Cruz and the Battle of Cerro Gordo in the army of MG Winfield Scott. Cutts became a merchant in Oglethorpe, Georgia by 1851. In 1854, he moved to Americus, Georgia, where he continued work as a merchant. He also was a slave holder. On December 17, 1854, Cutts married Fannie O. Brown of Monroe County, Georgia. They had six children: Claude, Clarence, Earnest, Allen, Inez and Eldridge. Cutts was a Methodist, a Mason and a member of the Odd Fellows.
Civil War
At the outbreak of the Civil war, Cutts raised a Georgia battery of Artillery, known as the Sumter Artillery. This battery arrived in Virginia after the First Battle of Bull Run, but it saw action at the Battle of Dranesville. In 1862 Cutts organized a battalion of Georgia artillery, the 11th Georgia Artillery Battalion, also known as the Sumter Artillery, becoming its commander.[1] This work was rewarded with promotions to the ranks of major (May 22, 1862), lieutenant colonel (May 26, 1862) and colonel (April 22, 1864).[1]
The Sumter Battalion served in the Artillery Reserve of the Army of Northern Virginia, under BG William N. Pendleton, in the Seven Days Battles.[2] It remained near Richmond Virginia for a time, missing the Second Battle of Bull Run. At the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Battle of Chancellorsville, Cutts’ battalion served once more in the Artillery Reserve.[3] Col Cutts missed the Battle of Gettysburg, in which his battalion was attached to the division of MG Richard H. Anderson in the corps of Ltg A. P. Hill. In that fight, Maj John Lane was in command.[4]
Col Cutts resumed command in time for the Bristoe Campaign, in which his battalion served in the Third Corps Artillery under Col R. Lindsay Walker. It also served in that formation in the Battle of Mine Run.[5] During the Overland Campaign of 1864, Cutts apparently assisted Walker in command of the guns of Hill’s Corps during the Battle of the Wilderness.[6] He retained battalion command during most of the Siege of Petersburg.[7] Early in the siege, Cutts was assigned command of a large concentration of guns north of the James River that harassed advancing federal forces trying to take the city of Petersburg. Despite intense counter battery fire from federal artillery, Cutts' gunners dug in and continued their fire.[8] Cutts' battalion later served south of the Appomattox River.[9]
Maj Lane, later a lieutenant colonel, commanded whenever Cutts was on leave. It is likely that Col Cutts was absent ill at the conclusion of the war. Lane was in command just before the Appomattox Campaign, but there is no clear record of the surrender of the Sumter Artillery at the end of the war.[10]
Post war
After the war, Col Cutts farmed and traded in cotton. Col Cutts also entered politics as a Democrat, serving as mayor of Americus in 1874-1875, 1877–1878, and 1893-1896. As a member of the Georgia legislature, in 1890 and 1891, Col Cutts tried unsuccessfully to secure state funding of the Confederate Soldiers Home.[11]
Mayor Cutts died in office in 1896. Col Cutts was buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in Americus.[2] His wife had died on December 8, 1886.
References
- Inline
- ↑ Georgia in the War 1861-1865, p. 67.
- ↑ Sibley, p. 19.
- ↑ Sibley, pp. 33, 39, 45.
- ↑ Lane became a major on April 4, 1863 and lieutenant colonel on March 1, 1865; see Georgia in the War 1861-1865, p. 67.
- ↑ Sibley, pp. 58, 64.
- ↑ Sibley, pp. 73-74.
- ↑ Sibley, pp. 113, 131, 140, 149, 157, 166, 185.
- ↑ Wise, p. 842.
- ↑ Wise, p. 917.
- ↑ Sibley, pp. 204, 217.
- ↑ Living Monuments: Confederate Soldiers' Homes in the New South pp. 54-55.
- General
- Jones, Charles E., Georgia in the War 1861-1865, Augusta, Ga. : C.E. Jones, 1909.
- Rosenburg, R. B., Living Monuments: Confederate Soldiers' Homes in the New South, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8078-2109-8
- Sibley, F. Ray , Junior, The Confederate Order of Battle, volume 1, The Army of Northern Virginia, Shippensburg, PA: White Mane, 1996.
- Wise, Jennings C., The Long Arm of Lee: the History of the Artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia, New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.