Phillip Augustus Fitts
Veteran of the Civil War
Lawyer, Soldier, Deacon, Priest
Phillip Augustus Fitts graduated from Alabama State University; was accepted into the bar and then practiced law in Tuscaloosa. On April 10th, 1861, he was married to Sophia Holland Cochrane, member of an old and cultured family of Tuscaloosa, daughter of the well-known attorney, William Cochrane. In the fall of 1861, Philip Fitts was confirmed in the Episcopal faith.
On November 29, 1861, Company F of the 2nd Alabama Artillery Battalion was organized in Tuscaloosa; the company was known as Lumsden’s Battery. Many of the men that served with this battery were from Tuscaloosa and several are buried here in Greenwood Cemetery.
Lumsden’s Battery reported for duty at Mobile, 125 strong. Stationed at Fort Gaines until, after Shiloh, the battery relieved Charles P. Gage’s at Tupelo, and were given six guns. The battery skirmished at Farmington, and in the Kentucky campaign fought at Perryville. At Chickamauga, there were several casualties, and the battery lost a gun. Its pieces moved down the road from Dalton to Atlanta, losing 5 killed and 25 wounded. The battery’s loss was small around Atlanta; but having marched with the army into Tennessee, it was overwhelmed at Nashville, losing its guns, six men killed and 22 captured. Placed in Spanish Fort, they were under fire for two weeks, with some loss. Moving up toward Marion Station, Mississippi, the battery was surrendered with the Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana, at Citronelle, Alabama, on May 4, 1865.
After the war he became a Deacon 1869; then a Priest in 1873. He served as Rector of the Church of the Advent in Birmingham from 1873 to 1875; as Rector at Trinity Church in Clarksville, Tennessee from 1875 to 1886; as Rector at Grace Church in Anniston in 1886; then at St Paul’s in Henderson Kentucky.
He and his wife Sophia Holland Cochrane had 8 children. One of their sons, William Cochrane Fitts was also an attorney, served as Alabama State Attorney General, and was a delegate to Alabama State Constitutional Convention.
Philip died in Franklin, Tennessee in 1900.
To locate the final, solve:
33 11.9AB
87 35.3CD
A = At the base of his grave marker is one word in large letters; count the number of letters in this word.
B = The third digit in the year he was born.
C = The first digit in the date of his birth.
D = The date of his death.