Bankhead’s Battery, whose official name is Company B, Tennessee Artillery Corps CSA Inc., was incorporated May 1, 1975, although it had been active for two years prior to incorporation.
It is the reactivation of the First Tennessee Artillery, which was raised by Capt. Smith P. Bankhead and subsequently called Scott’s Battery when Capt. Smith P. Bankhead was promoted. Captain Bankhead was a Memphis lawyer who recruited this unit in May of 1861.
The modern unit is recognized as a non-profit Tennessee corporation and was recognized as a 501(c)(3) organization by the Yankee government in December 1975.
The reactivated battery’s original members were T. Tarry Beasley II, John Echols, Robert Johnson, Perry Proctor and Ronald D. Lee of the Memphis area. Currently, the battery boasts members from Middle Tennessee through Arkansas, primarily still concentrated in West Tennessee.
From live shoots with exploding shells to living histories, the battery has traveled from Louisiana and Arkansas to Virginia and Pennsylvania exhibiting the skills of the Confederate artillerists with its original Confederate cannon and reproduction guns which are full- scale and with limbers.
One of the thrills of a lifetime for an artillerist occurred at a reenactment in Franklin, Tenn., when the unit was limbered up and horse drawn. The battery has been in numerous movies and television appearances and has several scrapbooks of newspaper articles and photographs. The battery was in “North-South,” “Glory,” the television series “The Mississippian,” as well as others.
Over its 30-year history, the battery has averaged going to and participating in eight to 12 events per year. Complete with tents and accurate accoutrements, the battery looks the part of an 1862 Confederate unit.
Members range in age from 17 to 70 and all are encouraged to become and be a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The original Confederate Noble Brothers cannon and its predecessor, a 12-pound Tredegar Howitzer, are never portrayed or re-enacted as a Yankee piece.
Over the years, more than 200 men have served in the reactivated Bankhead’s Battery and, to date, there have been no cannon-related accidents. Each and every time the battery goes to a re-enactment or live fire, the crew is assigned by the Captain, who is elected each year as was a practice of the Confederacy, and the order of the day is drill, drill, drill.
The National Safety Rules as published by The Artilleryman are followed in detail and repeated enough that each man knows all the jobs of each artillerist and each piece in order that he might spot any infringement or error and immediately call a halt to the loading and firing process.
The current roster of the battery is:
Carlton W. Barnes, T. Tarry Beasley II, Winston Blackley, J. Anthony Bradley, Andrew Grimball, Gary Hood, Gene Ingram, Gene L. Johnson, Nat Kimes, Mike Lambert, Michael Lambert II, Hugh B. Lax, Charles Lockard, Jim Mullikin, Allen Murray, Robert D. Neyman, Michael Nichols, Charles Reed, Steven Reed, Bill Ruddock, Shelton, Bill Simmons, Kevin Smith, Douglas Southall, Jeffrey Ulmer, Malcom Wilcox, Skyler Windsor-Cummings.
In the battery, there are currently two doctors, two lawyers and two deputy sheriffs among other occupations. The battery usually maintains six to eight men per crew for each of the three guns at a re-enactment and is always looking for a few good Rebels.
The battery’s mailing address that it has maintained for the past 30 years is P.O. Box 171251, Memphis, TN CSA 38187.