Arthur Willis Gloster was sworn into the Army of Tennessee in May of 1861, at Randolph,a small town on the Mississippi River. He and Nathan Bedford Forrest were sworn in together in the Cavalry Company of Captain White of Memphis...Their hands together on the same Bible.

Captain Gloster was an engineer with the Army of Tennessee and was at Island No. 10, Shiloh, Corinth and many other fields of battles and skirmishes before being captured when Vicksburg fell. He was exchanged the following October at Demopolis, Alabama and ordered to Missionary Ridge where he was placed in command of Company C of the 3rd Regiment Engineers. He later was sent to Atlanta to build wagons and boats for the pontoon trains of the Army. He remained in command of this train, building bridges over the streams crossed by the Army of Tennessee until the end of the War. After the War, Captain Gloster was engaged in locating and constructing some of the most important railroad lines in the South. He built a railroad line in Mississippi which produced the Town of Gloster, Mississippi so named in his honor.

Original tintype click image to enlarge

Sergeant James O. Gloster enlisted in Company G of the Tennessee 13th Volunteer Infantry - The Gaines Invincibles. This hard fought outfit first saw action at Belmont, Missouri on November 7, 1861. The regiment moved to Columbus, Kentucky until the fall of Fort Donelson necessitated an evacuation via Union City to Corinth. A week later Gloster fought at Shiloh where his Regiment captured a Federal Battery but sustained 137 casualties.

On August 10, 1862, the Brigade was detached to Knoxville and placed in General Patrick R. Cleburne's Division; then returned to Kentucky to fight the Kentucky Battles of Richmond and Perryville. From Perryville back to Knoxville on to Tullahoma the Brigade then moved to Murfreesboro in late November in preparation for the Great Battle of Murfreesboro. It was at that Battle on New Years Day that Sergeant James Otey Gloster was Killed In Action.

The Gloster Brothers are buried in the Very Historic Mt. Olivet Cemetery. The Cemetery is a large 250 acres which opened in 1855. It is situated on a hilltop, graced with large old trees and evergreens and impressive statuary crypts and tombs.

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Federal engineers bridging the Tennessee River at Chattanooga, March 1864

Civil War Engineer Headquarters

Pontoon bridge at Bull Run, Va., 1862.

Civil War Engineers Camp