Payton, James Harvey

Headstone of Pvt. James Harvey Payton

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Significance:

Private, 8th Minnesota Infantry, Company F

Place of Birth:

Pulaski County, Kentucky

Date of Birth:

1832

Place of Death:

Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Date of Death:

December 7, 1864

Place of Burial:

Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Cemetery Name:

Stones River National Cemetery

James Harvey Payton was born in 1832, most likely in Pulaski County, Kentucky. He married Rebecca Ann Thomas in Adams Township on September 25, 1864. At some point after their marriage, the couple moved to Minnesota where they had two sons, Edward Tillman Payton and James William Payton (who died while Payton was away), and a daughter, Emma Alice Payton. They also had twins, a pair of boys, who sadly died in infancy. Payton often referred to his children in his letters home, telling his wife his wishes for their schooling and saying that he wanted to buy them gifts or send them money for Christmas. Both Payton and his wife were Christian and appeared to be devout in their faith– one letter from Payton to his wife refers to her courage about being a Christian and another letter discusses a time he went to a service.

Private Payton served in Company F of the Eighth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. The regiment was formed in the summer of 1862, though a letter from Payton indicated he may have joined in early 1863. In the summer of 1864, he and the rest of the regiment crossed the plains to fight American Indians in what Payton referred to as the “Indian Expedition."

In the fall of 1864, Payton and his regiment travelled to Murfreesboro, Tennessee where the regiment helped protect Nashville and Northwestern Railroad. Payton’s first time fighting the Confederates was in December 1864 when Confederate General John B. Hood and his Army of Tennessee moved to confront U.S. forces defending Nashville.

When Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest threatened Murfreesboro with a force composed of his cavalry supplemented by infatry and artillery, the 8th Minnesota marched out of Fortress Rosecrans and met the enemy along the Wilkinson Pike on December 7, 1864. Of combat, Payton wrote, “if I live thru all this, all the better but if it should be my lot to fall in battle I will have to fill a soldiers [sic] grave where I fall. Now I don’t think it best to worry or talk anymore about these things.” 

The 8th Minnesota played a key role in routing the Confederates in this Battle of the Cedars, but Pvt. Payton lost his life. Captain Aldrich, commanding Company F, wrote a letter to his wife to inform her of his death. 

“Your Great Husband was killed yesterday about 1⁄2 past 2 O clock by a cannon ball passing through the center of my company killing one man besides Mr. Payton, Mr. S. W. Higgins, and wounding four other men, one severely, the others, slightly. The battle was a very severe one in which many a brave man fell to rise no more on earth, but will meet their dear loved ones in that upper and better [illegible] where sorrow, sighing, and those parting scenes can never enter.”

Payton is buried in Stones River National Cemetery in Plot F-2365.