Capt. James Rodgers Loughridge
Submitted by David Loughridge (great grandson of JRL)
Click HERE for full size copy

Oakwood Cemetery, Corsicana, Navarro Co., TX
Photo by Dana Stubbs

Ingram Cemetery, Navarro Co., TX
Photo by Dana Stubbs

Capt. James Rodgers Loughridge was born in 1821 in South Carolina to James and Deborah Ann (McGill) Loughridge. The eleven other children in order of birth were Allen Eccles; Robert McGill; John; Elizabeth; James Franklin; Andrew Jackson; Thomas Lewers; William Wallace; Samuel Gray; Maria Jane; and Joseph Loughridge. He came to Corsicana as a lawyer soon after the town was organized.  At a special term of court, April 27, 1861, $2,500.00 was voted for arms and ammunition to defend the Southern Confederacy.  I. T. Spence was sent to New Orleans to get it.  Money to pay for it was borrowed from the School Fund. (Page 115 Commissioners Court Minutes.)  Judge Loughridge resigned in July to serve in the Confederate Army as 1st lieutenant in Winkler's Company I, 4th Texas Volunteer Infantry - The Navarro Rifles.  He was wounded in the arm in the Battle of Gaines's Mill on June 27, 1862.  He was promoted to captain on July 21, 1863, and his successor to the 1st lieutenant's position was Mat Beasley.  On Nov 10, 1863 Loughridge resigned from the army, having been elected to the State Legislature from Navarro County.  He served as a Navarro County Judge from Aug. 1, 1858 - July 1861.  Later he served in the committee that got the H. & T. C. Railroad to come through Corsicana.  He died in 1886 and has has a common headstone with his wife in the Oakwood Cemetery, Corsicana, Texas (Section S, Row 1)  The marker, however, indicates he is buried at that plot but that James is buried near Rural Shade at the Ingram Cemetery.  His descendents live in Athens, Henderson Co., TX.

Notes:

• Information submitted by Norman Stubbs, Commander of J. L. Halbert Camp 359, SCV.  & Edward L. Williams Aug. 2002

• Link to Biography page of James Loughridge's brother, William Wallace Loughridgewho was a San Jacinto Veteran in the Texas Revolution

• h/o Mary Ann Felicia (Martin) Loughridge; s/o James Loughridge & Deborah Ann (McGill) Loughridge actually buried at the Ingram cemetery near Rural Shade

January 1884

[For the Prairie Flower]
A WAR INCIDENT

During the hottest part of the fight at Chickamauga, as the Texas brigade (Hood's) was advancing and driving the stubborn foe before them inch by inch, and at every step passing over the dead and wounded of the troops that they had relieved, one poor Confederate soldier, wounded to death and then almost at the last gasp, exclaimed: "O, Lord! what shall I do!" A tall, ungainly officer of the Fourth Texas stopped, in that storm of lead and iron, and laying his hand on the head of the dying man, said: "My friend, place your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ," and then passed on to his place in the ranks. The name of that officer was Captain Loughridge, of Company I, Fourth Texas, now a resident of Corsicana, Texas.

Notes:

• Submitted by Dana Stubbs