Captain W.S. Bearden, and his twin brother Edwin, served in almost every battle in the western theater of the American Civil War. Somehow they survived it all. May 16th, 1865 they were paroled in Meridian, Mississippi, each one using a crutch and walking stick to return to there Tennessee home.

Lt. Edwin Bearden was taken out of the war in Chickamauga (Brotherton Farm), brother Walter, in Jonesboro, Georgia after his 3rd wound in the Battle of Atlanta leading a counter-charge, supporting retreating Confederate forces out of Atlanta (his future wife Margaret Whiteside, a nurse in Atlanta, met him in a hospital in Griffin, GA. He was given up for dead after a near fatal .50 caliber musket ball to the upper thigh). This wound probably saved his life, as the 41st Tennessee were annihilated in front of The Carter House in Franklin, TN a few months later with General Strahl's Brigade.

In 1866, Walter Bearden was elected Chancellor of the 4th Division in Tennessee. He and his former Sergeant Major (S.A. Cunningham) also founded the Confederate Veteran Magazine. This publication gave a southerners perspective on the war between the states.

Chancellor Bearden was also a keynote speaker at the dedication of the CSA monument honoring the 35th aniversery of The Battle of Franklin, November 30th, 1899

Walter S Bearden