John Morton was one of the most remarkable figures developed during the War Between the States. The most remarkable was probably his commander, Nathan Bedford Forrest. The two made a Confederate "dream team” of sorts. The two men had somewhat of a father/son relationship.[i]

John Watson Morton was born September 19, 1842, in Nashville, Tennessee. 1861 found young Morton attending the Nashville Military College under the tutelage of two, soon to be, Confederate Generals, Bushrod Johnson and A. P. Stewart. Resigning in April 1861, he enlisted in the Rock City Guards, Tennessee Infantry under George Maney, another soon to be Confederate General. Maney told him he was too fragile and to "go home to your mother”. Fortunately, that only made the youngster more determined.

The "fragile” fellow managed to join Captain Thomas K. Porter’s Tennessee Light Artillery Company. Morton would receive his baptism in a terrible, terrible artillery fight at Fort Donelson where thirty-seven of forty-eight artillerymen were shot down and Captain Porter lost a leg. During the battle Morton started out carrying cartridges to the gun, eventually he was manning the gun alone. He had his feathered hat taken off by a cannonball and picked up a live shell and threw it over the works during the battle.

The battery was surrendered on February 16th, along with the rest of the forces surrendered at Fort Donelson. After Morton was exchanged at Vicksburg, Mississippi, September 16, 1862 he reported for duty to General Bragg. Lieutenant Morton was ordered to report to Brigadier General N. B. Forrest at Columbia, Tennessee, to take charge of his Horse Artillery. Upon reporting, Forrest, judging him too fragile and boyish for his command brushed him off, telling him that he had Freeman’s battery with a full complement of officers, and did not want it disturbed. Morton replied that he would still like to serve in Forrest’s Command until Forrest could give him a battery, Forrest still did not want him. Instead recommended he go to Joseph Wheeler. Wheeler did not want him either so, outranking Forrest, he sent the fragile young man back to Forrest in early December, 1862[ii].

Two weeks later, on a West Tennessee raid, Forrest captured two pieces of artillery and gave it to Morton. On December 23rd, Forrest ordered two pieces commanded by Lieutenant Gould, "of Colonel Napier’s regiment to be thrown with mine, thus forming a battery[iii]” to which Forrest appointed Morton as captain. Forrest dubbed these guns as the "Bull Pups”. Forrest once said that there was no force that he could not defeat with Morton’s Bull Pups. Forrest came to recognize the "boy’s” grit and made him Chief of Artillery; the youngest in either army.

In Forrest’s report of his West Tennessee raid, he stated that Captain Freeman and Lieutenant Morton, with all their men, deserved special mention for their actions in the Battle of Parker’s Crossroads on December 31, 1862[iv]. After the famous Battle of Brice’s Crossroads Forrest told the young man "Well John, your artillery won this fight”[v].

Morton served Forrest the remainder of the War and fully held up his end of the partnership, playing a prominent part in all of Forrest’s greatest victories.

The two men became close friends and relied on each other through thick and thin until Forrest’s death in 1877[vi].

The frock coat shown here is the same coat worn by Captain Morton in all the famous battles of his artillery after 1863. It was purchased from the estate of Annie Morton Stout[vii], John and Annie Morton’s granddaughter. She died in Memphis in 1983. Her sister Margaret had died the previous month[viii]. Annie had no children so the Stout family members sold Captain Morton’s frock coat, spurs, stirrups, a button from Morton’s UCV coat and the accompanying CDV to Memphis attorney and collector John Ryan in 1983 at a tag sale that year. Subsequently it belonged to Mike Miner, Hank Williams, Jr, Rafael Eledge and Shannon Pritchard.

The coat dates circa 1863. It is the same one that he is wearing in every known image of the famous Captain. His granddaughter loaned it to the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis[ix]to display for the centennial. It was at this time that the original buttons were stolen. Period buttons were later added and some conservation and restoration has been done, but all in all it is an attractive and solid Confederate Frock Coat with a history that few could surpass.

There is a CDV of Morton and a large archive of documentation recording in detail is complete chain of ownership from John Morton until today. There is also included a copy of the North South Trader Magazine that featured the entire group of Morton items that came into the public market after the passing of Morton's granddaughter.