"Clinton Cornelius Duncan, of Perry, Commander of Houston
county camp, No. 880, United Confederate veterans, was born in Houston county, Ga.,
December 5, 1839 son of James Erskin Duncan and Katherine H. Welch, both natives of North
Carolina. His grandfather, Robert Duncan, was a patriot soldier of the Revolution. Mr.
Duncan was educated in his home schools and at Collingsworth institute, Talbotton, and had
been admitted to the practice of law when the heroic era of the South was ushered in by
the inauguration of the Confederate government. When troops were called for to defend the
new republic, he enlisted at Perry, in the spring of 1861, in the company of John A.
Houser, which was mustered in as Company
C of Col. James N. Ramsey’s First Georgia infantry. Beginning as a private, he
was made a sergeant before the close of the twelve months’ enlistment. The career of
this regiment is well known--its early service at Pensacola, followed by transfer to
Virginia; the assignment to the little outpost of the Confederacy at Laurel Hill, in West
Virginia, the retreat from that point through the mountains up to Maryland and back again
to Monterey, the fighting at Carrick’s Ford, where General Garnett was killed, and
the manifold miseries of the mountain campaign without shelter or food. In the winter of
1861-62 they served under Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah valley, and in April, 1862,
their enlistment having expired, they returned to Georgia. Mr. Duncan then re-enlisted in
the Southern Rights battery,
commanded by Capt. Joseph
Palmer, and later by Capt.
M. W. Havis, and was made orderly sergeant of this company, which was noted for
gallant service throughout the campaigns of the army of Tennessee. Sergeant Duncan served
at the battle of
Perryville,
Ky., where his brother was severely wounded, and on the return to Tennessee was
attached to the command of Gen. John H. Morgan, with whom the battery served for two
months. Subsequently they formed part of the reserve artillery under Col. Felix H.
Robertson, and participated in the battles of Chickamauga,
Missionary Ridge, and those of
the Hundred Days’ campaign
from Dalton to Atlanta, including the battle of Atlanta, July 22, 1864.. Their last
campaign was in the Carolinas, and they were surrendered with the army at Greensboro,
April 26, 1865. Sergeant Duncan had a worthy part in all this service. At its close he
returned to Houston county and resumed the practice of his profession, in which he has
attained an honorable prominence. He represented the county in the Georgia legislature in
1868 and 1869, and has been a delegate to three national conventions of the Democratic
party. His political services have been of such worth that he was honored in 1892 by
appointment as general inspector of Indian agents, by President Cleveland, an office that
engrossed his attention during four years. Mr. Duncan was married in 1862 to Eliza Pope,
and they have five children. The eldest son, James Pope, is associated with his father in
the law practice and has served in the legislature."
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