How many people do you think you could get to verify that you are a good person?

One Lawrence County man got the signatures of 190 people!

The reason? Civil War veteran drama.

In the spring of 1906, 78-year-old James S. Finley of Lawrenceburg applied for a pension from the State of Tennessee for his service in the Confederate army. In 1861, Finley enlisted in Company A of the 32nd Tennessee Infantry. He was a Methodist pastor in civilian life, and on October 28, 1861, he was elected chaplain of his regiment.

After the fall of Fort Donelson and the capture of a large portion of the Army of Tennessee in February 1862, Finley claims that he was ordered to return home until further notice. He says that when the men of his regiment were exchanged in October 1862, he reported to the conscription officer, who promptly issued him a discharge due to his status as a minister. He says that for the duration of the war, he “lived a quiet and peaceable life,” minding his own business at his home in Marshall County.

Finley’s account and his extant service record satisfied the Tennessee Board of Pension Examiners, and he was allowed to draw his $5 per month–once. After one check, Finley’s pension stopped and he was given no reason why.

As it turned out, some local Confederate veterans were outraged that Finley’s name was added to the pension roll, and they wasted no time letting the state know. Finley found out about this when the Pension Board mistakenly sent him a letter that was probably intended for the governor. It said:

“As soon as his name appeared in the published list of new pensioners, we received protests from some of the leading citizens of Lawrence County…and from Marshall County where he lived during the war. It was charged that he saw little or no service in the army, that he left the army in 1862, and that thereafter he affiliated with the other side, acting as pilot and informer for the Federal troops in this section of the state.”

Finley’s neighbor, the schoolteacher and Union veteran J.J.W. Starr, wrote a flurry of letters to the governor and the Pension Board denying the charges and insisting that Finley be allowed a fair and impartial hearing regarding the case.

T.H. Meredith, a local Confederate veteran and court official, did not mince words in his angry letters to the Pension Board. He claimed that Finley helped the Union army during the war, that he began the first Northern Methodist church ever seen in the area, that he consistently voted the Republican ticket, and that he was “a low-down cuss, and he deserves a kick from all honest men.” Meredith had some harsh words for J.J.W. Starr, too, calling him “the most contemptible Yankee that ever struck our county,” and that he “meddles in a great many things that do not concern him.”

John B. Kennedy, another local Confederate veteran and court official, took aim at Finley’s personal life, claiming that Finley had been married three times; the first wife “he treated so shamefully and so brutally…that she finally went insane and died,” the second he divorced, and the third he ordered from a “matrimonial service.” Kennedy went on to say that Finley “is the worst old Philistine who has so far escaped the jawbone.”

In the autumn of 1909, a petition circulated requesting Finley’s reinstatement on the roll, stating that he was “a person of good moral character and worthy of belief.”

The petition, seen here, is impressive. It contains 190 names of men from a variety of walks of life. James D. Vaughan, the father of Southern Gospel music, signed it, as did the mayor, a doctor, a dentist, multiple pastors, several Civil War veterans of both sides, as well as butchers, merchants, painters, carpenters, harness makers, brakemen, newspaper editors, bakers, and the city marshal.

Finley died in 1911, but was never reinstated to the pension roll. He is buried in Mimosa Cemetery in Lawrenceburg, surrounded by both his detractors and most of the 190 men who signed their names to vouch for his character.