John Gregg, son of Nathan and Sarah Gregg, was born in Lawrence County, Alabama on September 28, 1828. He attended school in La Grange, Georgia, where he taught after graduating in 1847. By 1851, Gregg, like many other Civil War generals, started to study law; Gregg began his studies in Alabama, and moved to Texas in 1852. He was married twice: first, to a woman named Mollie Winston, who died in 1855; later to one Mary Frances Garth. Gregg had two children with Garth.[1]

            After practicing law for several years, Gregg began the first newspaper in Freestone County called the “Freestone County Pioneer.” In following a legal career, Gregg served as a district judge starting from 1855-1860. A landowner with “substantial property holdings,” including several slaves, Gregg both signed and helped to publish the call for a Texas Secession Convention; before the outbreak of war, Gregg was elected at the Secession Convention to the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy, which met in Montgomery, Alabama.[2]

            When war broke out between the Union and the Confederacy, Gregg resigned from his congressional position and helped to form the 7^th Texas Infantry. Not long after enlisting, Gregg was captured by Union forces and imprisoned at Fort Warren, in Massachusetts. By September of 1862, Gregg had been freed, returned home, and commissioned as a brigadier general. He was then sent to Mississippi.[3]

            At the first major battle of Gregg’s military career, at Raymond, he commanded the several of the Tennessee Infantries: 3^rd, 10^th, 30^th, 41^st, and 50^th. He was also in command of the 1^st Tennessee Battalion and the 7^th Texas Infantry at Raymond. Gregg’s men faced a Union force nearly four times their size and were forced to retreat after several hours of fighting.[4]

            At another major battle in Gregg’s career, at the Battle of Chicamauga, he was seriously wounded. On September 19, 1863, Gregg was wounded and sent to Marietta, Georgia to recuperate.[5]

            General John Gregg was killed on October 7^th, 1864 while commanding troops at the Battle of Richmond. [6] He was buried in Aberdeen, Mississippi in April, 1865.[7]

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