Lt. Joseph Alston Huger, Jr. (CSA)

Joseph Alston Huger, one of the representative citizens of Savannah and one who stood prominent in business affairs, came of staunch old Southern stock and was a veteran of the Civil war, in which he rendered yeoman service in defense of the cause of the Confederacy. He was born in Pendleton, Anderson county, S.C., June 15, 1843, and is a son of Dr. Joseph A. and Mary Esther Huger, both of whom were likewise born in South Carolina, the former having been a native of the city of Charleston. Dr. Joseph A. Huger was a skilled physician and surgeon, and also carried on an extensive enterprise as a rice planter. His father, Daniel Elliott Huger, was a distinguished and influential citizen of the state of South Carolina, a lawyer by profession, served with distinction on the circuit bench, and also represented his state in the United States senate. His wife, whose maiden name was Isabella J. Middleton, was a daughter of Arthur Middleton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The founder of the Huger family in America was Daniel Huger, a French Huguenot, who came to this country in 1685, settling in South Carolina, with whose annals the name has ever since been identified, and the family have become linked, through marriages in several generations, with other prominent families of South Carolina, such as Middletons, the Pinckney's, the Rutledge's and the Blake's. The maiden name of the mother of the subject of this review was Huger, and she and her husband were second cousins. Her brother, Gen. Benjamin Huger, was a distinguished officer in the Confederate service during the Civil war. Representatives of the Huger family were found enrolled as patriot soldiers of the Continental line in the war of the Revolution.

Joseph A. Huger, received his early educational discipline in boarding schools of North Carolina, where the family had a summer residence, and in a military academy at Columbia, S.C., where he was a student at the time of the outbreak of the Civil war. In the summer of 1861, at the age of seventeen years, he withdrew from school to enter the service of the Confederacy, receiving a commission as second lieutenant and later being promoted to first lieutenant. At the close of the war he was in command of a light battery of Georgia regulars, having served during practically the entire course of the great internecine conflict. He took part in the battles of Port Royal and Secessionville, in many skirmishes along the coast from Charleston to Brunswick, and was with the command of Gen. Joseph Wheeler in the operations about Atlanta, his battery forming a part of Wheeler’s artillery until it entered Savannah.

At the time of Lee’s surrender Mr. Huger was with Johnston’s army in North Carolina. He never surrendered, having succeeded in making good his escape and returning to his home. After the war he gave his attention to the rice planting industry, owning and managing the old homestead plantation which had been owned by both his father and grandfather, the fine old place lying opposite Savannah, in Beaufort County, S.C. He was also president of the company owning and operating the Planters’ rice mill, in the city of Savannah, and president of the Georgia-Carolina Navigation Company. In politics Mr. Huger gave unqualified allegiance to the Democratic party, but he never sought or held public office. He was a member of the Savannah board of trade and of the Oglethorpe club. Mr. Huger married Miss Mary Elliott, daughter of Dr. Ralph E. and Margaret (Mackay) Elliott, of Savannah, and the children of this union are five in number. Eliza Mackay is the wife of Robert C. Harrison, of Savannah, a nephew of Gen. W.W. Gordon, and the names of the other children are Caroline Pinckney, Emma Middleton, Percival Elliott and Clermont Kinloch.

The Huger-Gordon House, is located in Bluffton, South Carolina. It was built in 1795. This is the only antebellum house located on the bluff overlooking the May River that survived the Burning of Bluffton on June 4, 1863. Minié balls, lodged in the front door studs give evidence of the sniping that took place between Union forces and Confederate pickets here. The frame ​1 1⁄2-story building is placed on a low brick foundation of piers with a gabled roof and interior chimneys. A one-story veranda with a shed roof and chamfered posts, runs the width of the house on the riverside and the central dormer has glass doors cut into the eave of the roof and veranda. It is believed the house was built around 1795 and enlarged in the 1820s. The owner in 1863 was Colonel Ephraim Mikell Seabrook who had acquired the property from Dr. William Lowndes Hamilton in 1855. Dr. Joseph Alston Huger, II bought the property from the Seabrook's in 1882 and it has remained in the Huger family. Mr. & Mrs. Hugh Gordon made alterations to the exterior and interior in the 1970s.

Huger, Jr., Joseph A. BATTLE UNIT NAME: Maxwell's Regular Light Battery, Georgia Artillery SIDE: Confederacy COMPANY: SOLDIER'S RANK IN: Second Lieutenant SOLDIER'S RANK OUT: First Lieutenant ALTERNATE NAME: FILM NUMBER: M226 ROLL 30 PLAQUE NUMBER: NOTES: General Note - See also 1 Ga. Regulars.

Huger, Jr., Joseph A. BATTLE UNIT NAME: 1st Regiment, Georgia Regulars SIDE: Confederacy COMPANY: D
SOLDIER'S RANK IN: Acting Second Lieutenant SOLDIER'S RANK OUT: Second Lieutenant ALTERNATE NAME: FILM NUMBER: M226 ROLL 30 PLAQUE NUMBER: NOTES: General Note - See also Maxwell's Batty. Ga. Art.