William T. Gibson was born on May 6, 1844, in Paulding County, Georgia,[1] to Henry Alexander Gibson and Sarah Jane Thomas Janes Gibson.[2]
Gibson was just five years old when his father died.[3] Two years later, in December 1851, his mother married her second husband, William Mortimer Lampton.[4] Gibson was around 11 years old when his half-brother, Mitchel Lampton, was born in 1855.[5]
In 1861, the Civil War began just weeks before Gibson turned 17. Gibson joined the Confederate Army at the age of 17 as a private. He enlisted in Capt. H.F. Wimberley’s Company D of Phillips’ Legion Polk County Rifles,[6] which was one of the first to leave the area to head to the front in Virginia. Gibson’s friend, E.H. Richardson, MD, would later write,[7] “In common with all of the sons of slave owners of the South, he was accustomed to command and horseback riding in forest and field, and the life of the soldier came natural to him.”
Gibson participated in the campaign of 1861 under Generals Lee and Jackson in Western Virginia and was with Lee in his defense of the Carolina and Georgia sea coasts. Gibson fought with Lee’s army during a four-month campaign that culminated in the Second Battle of Manassas in September of 1862. Following that victory, Lee’s army marched toward Washington and “dauntlessly plunged into the great battle of Sharpsburg.” On the second day of the battle, Gibson was seriously wounded when a minie ball struck him in the chest, passed through his right lung and emerged near the spine. Gibson’s commanding officer, Capt. J.A. Peek, noticed Gibson was missing and, after a brief search, found him “weltering in the blood gushing from his breast.” Peek reportedly told Gibson, “Sorry but [I] don’t think you can live but for a few minutes.” to which Gibson is said to have replied, “All right, tell my mother I was not afraid to die for my country.” That night, Capt. Peek sent a litter bearer to retrieve Gibson if he still lived. Gibson was brought back and evacuated across the Potomac. By this time, Lee’s forces were in retreat. Capt. Peek ordered 1st Sgt. Gus Wimberly to submit to capture and remain with Gibson. “No man ever looked in the face of a braver soldier than W.T. Gibson,” Richardson wrote.
Gibson was sent home to Cedartown to recuperate. On May 3, 1863, he was attending church when a courier interrupted the service to announce that the enemy was moving towards Rome and intended to burn the city and destroy the cannon works.
“Instantly, young Gibson rose from his seat, leaving the church and in a few minutes he was seen mounted upon steed galloping with musket in the direction of Alabama,” Richardson wrote.
Gibson later joined General Joe Wheeler fighting Sherman as he marched through Georgia. “But it was in vain,” Richardson recounted. Southern valor, he explained, could not contend “against the armies and guns furnished by every section of the earth.”
Gibson, however, was “as brave in peace as he was courageous in war.” After the war, “all property had been swept away by the storms of war, homes burned, the youth and flower of the South’s manhood slain or maimed in battle; food and animals, all implements of shop and farm destroyed,” Richardson recorded. “The spectacle of the helpless condition of the widowed women and children at this period made the South most truly the Niobe of Nations.”
Gibson, “earnest, quiet and a man of few words,” realized the rehabilitation of the South was the paramount issue of the hour. “With patience and splendid courage, he began his life at the bottom,” Richardson wrote. “By indefatigable labor, probity and intuitive business acumen, he amassed an independent competency, winning the confidence and recognition of his fellow citizens.”
On September 24, 1867, Gibson married Anna Elizabeth Crook.[8]
In 1875, at 31 years of age, Gibson purchased what was then known as “The Lake Farm” from W.M. Friend. After less than four years of ownership,[9] Gibson sold the Lake Farm to Green Cunningham on September 10, 1879, for $5,000.
In 1882, Gibson and his wife welcomed their daughter, Jennie Mae Gibson.[10]
Gibson served as Vice President of the First National Bank of Cedartown. He was a trustee of the Hearn School, a member of the City School Board of Cedartown, and treasurer of the Polk County Farmers Club, of which he was a charter member.[11]
More than 20 years before his death, Gibson’s health began to fail him. He lost most of his hearing and only found solace in his home with his daughter, Jennie Mae (Mrs. Edred Childs Benton), and his wife Anna, who Richardson identified as the jewel of Gibson’s life.
“W.T. Gibson measured up to the full stature of the model citizen … he discharged his every obligation to mankind, his country and his God. He never deceived or equivocated. He was always honest and direct,” Richardson recollected. “This generation who did not know the dashing, generous cavalier of the sixties never knew William Thomas Gibson.”
Gibson died in 1912 and was buried in Cedartown where a street is named after him. His tombstone reads “He has gone to rest after a useful life.”
Richardson wrote, “The soul of our loved one has entered the realm of the stars. In the nighttime of despair purified love may hallow and exalt itself by its plaintive call for the lost one to speak to us, but vain is the call; the response is only silence and darkness.”
[1] The Cedartown Standard., May 23, 1912, Image 4
[2] "William T. Gibson." FamilySearch. Accessed May 22, 2025. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/LYF1-ND5.
[3] "Henry Alexander Gibson." FamilySearch. Accessed May 22, 2025. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/KCVD-BFK.
[4] “Sarah Jane Thomas Janes” FamilySearch. Accessed May 22, 2025. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/2DXY-FSX
[5] “Mitchel L. Lampton” FamilySearch. Accessed May 22, 2025. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/LYF1-N64
[6] The Heritage of Polk County Georgia 1851-2000, page 19.
[7] The Cedartown Standard, May 23, 1912, Image 4
[8] Ancestry.com. Georgia, U.S., Marriage Records From Select Counties, 1828-1978 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.Original data:County Marriage Records, 1828–1978. The Georgia Archives, Morrow, Georgia.
[9] Ancestry.com. Georgia, U.S., Property Tax Digests, 1793-1892 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data:Georgia Tax Digests [1890]. 140 volumes. Morrow, Georgia: Georgia Archives. Year: 1877-1880
[10] "Jennie Mae Gibson." FamilySearch. Accessed May 22, 2025. https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/MB9Q-47F
[11] The Heritage of Polk County Georgia 1851-2000, page 65.