Oswald Tilghman

Oswald Tilghman-Commander of Confederate States of America.

Early life

Oswald Tilghman was born on the old Talbot County plantation, Plimhimmon, near Oxford, Maryland on March 7, 1841 His father, General Tench Tilghman, was a graduate of West Point military academy, and his mother was a daughter of John Leeds Kerr, United States senator from Maryland, 1841 to 1843. Matthew Tilghman, an ancestor of the family, was a member of the Continental congress at the time of the declaration of independence; and Colonel Tench Tilghman, another ancestor, served as one of Washington's aides'de'camp. Oswald Tilghman was educated at the Maryland Military Academy, at Oxford. His school days over, he went to Texas in 1859, and settled In Washington County

Engagement in the Civil War

When the American Civil War began, he volunteered as a private in Company B, in Terry's Texas Rangers, of the Confederate army. He participated in the Battle of Shiloh and in the campaigns about Richmond, and was aide on the staff of his kinsman, General Lloyd Tilghman, who was killed in front of Vicksburg, Mississippi. During the Siege of Port Hudson, Oswald Tilghman commanded the Rock City artillery of Nashville, Tennessee—a heavy battery on the banks of the Mississippi river—and was the only one of the four officers of that battery who survived the siege. In March, 1863, he took active part, with his battery, in the destruction of the United States steam frigate Mississippi, of which vessel Admiral George Dewey was then executive officer, when Admiral Farragut's fleet attempted to pass the Confederate batteries. For his bravery on this occasion, he was commended by Lieutenant Colonel de Gournay, who commanded the left wing of the Confederate batteries. But his military career was cut short by the capitulation of Port Hudson, after which he was held as a prisoner on Johnson's Island in Lake Erie until the conclusion of the war.

Career

When the conflict between North and South had been brought to a close, Tilghman returned to Talbot county and began his preparation for the legal profession. He read law with Senator Charles H. Gibson, was admitted to the bar, and has since been engaged in the practice of law and in the real estate business in his native county, residing at Foxley Hall, Easton, a colonial brick mansion built by Henry Dickinson, whose son, Charles Dickinson, was killed by General Andrew Jackson in a duel in Logan County, Ky., in 1806.

He was married in 1884 to Belle Harrison, daughter of Doctor Samuel A. Harrison, the local annalist of Talbot County. They have two children, a daughter, Mary Foxley Tilghman, and a son, Samuel Harrison Tilghman, a graduate in civil engineering of Lehigh University, class of 1907. Governor Wm. T. Hamilton, of Maryland, appointed Oswald Tilghman, in 1881, one of the two commissioners, with the rank of colonel, to represent the state at the Centennial Celebration of Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown. On this occasion he wore the sword presented to Colonel Tench Tilghman by congress in 1781 for his especial service in bearing to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia the official announcement from General Washington of the surrender of the British garrison at Yorktown. From 1893 to 1897 Colonel Tilghman was a member of the senate of Maryland, having been elected on the Democratic ticket. The state bureau of immigration was established in 1896 largely through his efforts. Colonel Tilghman has long been a personal friend of Governor Warfield, and in 1904 the latter appointed him secretary of state under his administration as governor.

Colonel Tilghman owned a valuable collection of Revolutionary relics and papers; he is a member of the Maryland Historical Society and of several patriotic and fraternal societies, including the Society of the Cincinnati of Maryland, of which he was the vice-president; the Maryland Society of Colonial Wars; the Masons; and the Odd Fellows. He has for several years represented the Maryland State Society in the General Society of the Cincinnati. He was president of the Board of Development of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and was auditor of the circuit court of Talbot County for over twenty years. He was commander of Charles S. Winder Camp, U. C. V., and he also commanded the 1st Brigade of the Maryland Division of the United Confederate Veterans. He was the author of several historical and genealogical papers and addresses.