Last updated: August 5, 2025
Person
John Marshall Wooley
Paul Stinson
Quick Facts
Place of Birth:
Barnwell, South Carolina
Date of Birth:
February 1, 1838
Place of Death:
Lott, Texas
Date of Death:
July 5, 1912
Place of Burial:
Lott, Texas
Cemetery Name:
Clover Hill Cemetery
John Marshall Wooley was born on February 1, 1838, in Barnwell, South Carolina. His parents were Reason and Viney Wooley. His family later moved west to Louisiana. Wooley married Lavena Elizabeth Sawyer in Bienville, Louisiana, on April 25, 1858.
On March 12, 1862, at the age of 24, Wooley enlisted as a private in the Confederate army. He served with Company H, 9th Louisiana Infantry Regiment. He shipped to Virginia in early 1862 with the rest of the Louisiana Brigade. Wooley fought in many of the major Civil War battles in the eastern US. He got sick and wounded several times. Wooley was a pneumonia patient in the Richmond Hospital in late 1862. He got wounded while fighting in the Second Battle of Winchester in June 1863. Wooley may have gotten hurt again fewer than three weeks later on the third day of battle at Gettysburg. Wooley was again listed as absent due to a wound from May until August 1864. He may have suffered this wound during the Wilderness campaign.
Returning to the army, Wooley fought in the Shenandoah Valley again. He was in the battles of Third Winchester, Fisher’s Hill, and Cedar Creek.
At Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864, Wooley suffered a head wound from a cannon shell fragment. US soldiers captured Wooley, who was left for dead on the battlefield. He got treatment in a field hospital, then sent to Point Lookout, Maryland, as a prisoner of war. During his recovery, doctors put a steel plate in Wooley’s head. He signed the Oath of Allegiance to the United States on June 21, 1865, and went back to Louisiana.
Waiting at home for John was his wife and young son. Wooley and his family moved to Texas where he worked as a farmer and raised seven children.
Wooley died on July 5, 1912, at the age of 74 in Lott, Texas. He is buried in the Clover Hill Cemetery in Lott, Texas.
It is unknown where Wooley got wounded and captured on the Cedar Creek battlefield. There are at least three strong possibilities. First was early in the morning on October 19, 1864, against US 19th Corps positions near the Valley Turnpike. Second was later during the morning attack against the US 6th Corps west of Belle Grove Plantation. Third was late in the afternoon during the Federal counterattack that drove the Confederates from the field.