W.T. Booth Collection

William Thomas Booth, known later in life as “W.T.”, was born on July 3, 1840 in either Alabama or Georgia. His father was William Nathaniel Booth, and his mother was Hermine Braning Booth. He had four siblings: Alliene, Coriene H., B.F., and Emily. Prior to the start of the Civil War, the Booth family moved from Georgia to Jasper County, Mississippi.

Booth enlisted in the Confederate Army in May of 1861, in Company I of the 20th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, also known as The Jasper Rifles. In August of that year, the 20 th Mississippi was sent to Lynchburg, Virginia. September 26 th found the Regiment at Sewell Mountain in Kanawaha Valley. The months of October and November were spent camped at Gauley, participating in skirmishes at Laurel Creek and McCoy's Mill.

In February 1862, Booth was among some 13,000 Confederate soldiers who were surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Fort Donelson, Tennessee. Along with 45 other men, Booth escaped the Union troops. Traveling on foot through ice and snow across union lines, the men made their way back to Mississippi, with no weapons and no rations to sustain them.

Once Booth returned to Mississippi, he joined Company H of the 37th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, since his own Regiment had surrendered. While with the 37th Mississippi, he fought in the Battle of Iuka on September 19, 1862. He also fought in the Battle of Corinth in October 1862, at which time he was shot in the right ankle and left arm. He was captured on October 4, when Union troops overran the Confederate hospital in which he was recuperating. He was repatriated after a prisoner exchange, but was unable to return to service for almost a year, due to the wounds sustained in battle. He rejoined the 20 th Mississippi in July of 1863, which by then had regrouped. In the latter years of the war, he saw action in Georgia and Tennessee.

After the war, Booth returned to Jasper County, Mississippi, and settled down to farming. He married Clemontina White in 1868, and they became the parents of eight children: Emilie Olivia, Ida Elmore, Ada Belzora, James Henry, Eliza H., Mary Elizabeth, John Benjamin, and William Edgar.

Booth was active in politics and in the Confederate Veteran's Organization. He met regularly with his old comrades at reunions held at Beauvoir, home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. He died on January 4, 1913, and his wife died three years later. Both are interred in Green Valley Cemetery, just north of Rose Hill, Mississippi.