Gen TW Castleman

The Bossier Banner, W. H. SCANLAND, Editor and Proprietor BENTON, LA., Thursday, January 15, 1914.

DEATH OF GEN. T. W. CASTLEMAN.

Major General Thomas W. Castleman died in Touro Infirmary, New Orleans, Sunday afternoon at 4:10 o'clock from exhaustion from an operation performed for appendicitis, aged seventy years.

Gen. Castleman was born at Staunton, Va. At the age of twelve years he came to Louisiana, settling at St. Joseph. He enlisted early in the war, served continuously until the surrender, and was a gallant Confederate soldier, participating in the Battle of Shiloh and other battles. He was severely wounded in a fight at Baldwin, Miss., June 14, 1862. After the war Gen. Castleman returned to St. Joseph and from 1868 to 1872 he owned and edited the Tensas Gazette. From 1875 he engaged in planting in Tensas and Concordia Parishes until 1887, when several overflows of the river ruined his plantations, and he removed to New Orleans, first engaging in the commission business.

Gen. Castleman filled many important and responsible positions in this State, and he was true to every trust. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1898; one of the Commissioners of Louisiana to the Jamestown Exposition in 1907; Major General commanding the Louisiana Division of the United Confederate Veterans in 1910-11; State Tax Collector for the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Wards of New Orleans, and for several years past, as Commissioner of Louisiana Military Records, has been engaged in the patriotic work of compiling the military records of the Confederate soldiers of Louisiana, and had almost completed this work—so dear to his heart—at the time of his death. His life was a busy one, and he rendered great services to his State and his comrades he so zealously served, and as he unselfishly preferred to do, practically "died in harness."

Gen. Castleman was a man of a fine sense of honor, brave, magnanimous, liberal and public spirited. Devotion to duty was always characteristic of his life. His sound judgment, keen intelligence, high sense of justice, scorn of everything mean, as well as his moral courage, stood out in bold relief, proclaiming him every inch a man. He was ever true to himself, to his honor, to his country and to his comrades, living an honest and upright life worthy the admiration of mankind.

Gen. Castleman in an eminent degree kept the affection of his comrades of the Louisiana Division of United Confederate Veterans. His work is done; his labors are ended, and he has entered upon that real life which shall have no end.