Profile: Little Berry Stephens (1845-1930)

Little Berry Stephens in the 1920s,
wearing the medal given him by the
Daughters of the Confederacy.

Little Berry Stephens, known as "Uncle Berry" in family lore, was my great-great-grandfather on my mother's side. He was born 17 Oct, 1845 in Centre, Cherokee County, Alabama, the third son of William A. Stephens and his wife Sarah Belinda Emilene , maiden name Harbour.  The elder Stephens was a native of Georgia, the son of James Stephens and long rumored to be the brother of Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens, though the historical record does not support this family legend. Sarah was born in Virginia, and was in fact descended from many of the oldest families of that state, including the Washingtons, Witts,  and Stranges. Together they were among the first settlers in Cherokee County.

In  March of 1861, Berry's older brother James enlisted in the Confederate Army, eventually joining Company C of the 7th Alabama Infantry, under Captain William Clare. James was among the fallen at Chickamauga and Berry came to retrieve the diary his brother had been keeping of his experiences.  This diary eventually came to be part of the Rosanna Alexander Blake Library of Confedrate History at Marshall University, and in 2003 was transcribed by Jack Dickinson and published as "If I Should fall in Battle... The Civil War Diary of James Stephens.''

Little Berry Stephens enlisted in the army soon after James' death, as did his other brother John B. Stephens. On  2 Oct, 1863, he joined Company F of the 12th Alabama Infantry, under Colonel Warren S. Reese.  On 24 December, 1863, during a skirmish at Dandridge, Tennessee between Confederate forces under Longstreet and Union forces under Burnside, Berry was wounded  when his knee was scrapped by canister shot. He was also furloughed for 30 days with rubella in June of 1864.  After being paroled at Kingston, Georgia in May of 1865, he returned to Cherokee.  In 1874 he married Lydia Ann Stinson, daughter of  John W.Stinson and Barbara Stinson (Bates). Their children were Irene (?-?), Barbara (1876- 1952), Fannie (1879-1880), and Julius Norman (1886-1954). Julius married Beulah Vesta Hoge, daughter of John F. Hoge, formerly a Captain in the Confederate Calvary, and Louisa Hoge (Cunningham).  Barbara married  William F. Hoge, Beulah's brother. The Hoges lived just a few houses down from the Stephens, as indicated by the 1900 census.

A member of the Stonewall Jackson Camp #411 of Confederate Veterans, Uncle Berry often regaled people with his experiences in the war, and was interviewed in an issue of the "Confederate Veteran" magazine in 1928. He also received a medal from the Daughters of the Confederacy, which he often wore. In 1922 he  applied for a military pension, but his status as a property owner (425 acres) disqualified him. In 1927 he marched into the office of local newspaper writer Will I. Martin to "have a squawk" with Mr. Martin about inaccuracies in his recently published account of the capture of Union raider Col. W.D. Streight in the nearby town of Cedar Bluff. Martin recounted his correction by Uncle Berry in a nostalgic piece written decades later.

Little Berry Stephens died 10 Dec 1930, having lived long enough to see the arrival of his great-granddaughter, my mother, who was born in December of 1929.  He was buried in Parker Grove Cemetery in Centre, next to his beloved Lydia, who had died five years earlier. In November of 2010, the Civil War Roots society chose Little Berry Stephens as one of the figures featured in their 2011 calendar, distributed to Civil War historical societies and libraries, with a limited number available to the public.

Four generations of the Stephens family. Little Berry Stephens
with daughter Barbara Stephens Hoge, granddaughter Lydia
Hoge Gage, and great-grandson Matthew Gage. Photo circa 1926.