General John Robie Kennedy
Civil War Veteran
“Had a hard time in getting enlisted”
General Kennedy was serving as Commander of the Alabama Confederate Veterans and Commander of the Army of Tennessee and had done so for several years, as noted in an interview with him at his small cottage in Tuscaloosa; he was 90 years old at the time.
When the war started John R. Kennedy was only 13 years old; but like so many other young men from the south, who expected the war to be over in 90 days, he signed up with the Florence Guards, a company in the Confederate forces in which his father was a commissary officer. The youngster became a commissary sergeant himself. The Florence Guards were engaged at the Battle of Shiloh, but young John did not get to take part as he was deemed too young.
After Shiloh the novelty of war wore off and he left the army to attend school. He entered the University of Alabama in 1863, his family having moved to Tuscaloosa after the federal troops had destroyed its home in Florence.
The university at that time was a training center for Confederate officers. Kennedy said “I had a hard time getting in the university and a harder time after I got in" explaining that only a limited number of cadets, about 250, were taken in. His entrance was made possible by the "desertion" of some of the students, tired of the inaction of student life, who joined Forrest's cavalry forces to get into "some fighting." He had to "enlist" rather than "enroll" in the University.
Discipline at the school was severe at the time. General Kennedy said. Guards were posted around the outer confines of the school to keep students from leaving the grounds. Even Tuscaloosa students could come home only on Saturday and Sunday. As for the university courses of 1863, "More attention was paid to Greek and Latin than to arithmetic," he said.
Cadets during the war period were kept in a state of excitement regarding a federal invasion, because of the lack of communications concerning the movements of the Northern troops, he pointed out. The university was finally destroyed by the federals in 1865, but Gen. Kennedy was not in school at the time.
Although his title of General was not earned during the conflict, he earned the title serving with the veterans associations, attending reunions across the south. He died being one of the oldest confederate veterans.
To locate the final, solve
33 12.3AB
87 33.9CD
A = The number of letters in the second word on the first line of text.
B = Subtract 3 from the date of his birth.
C = The first digit in the date of his death.
D = The number of letters in the last word on the first line of text.