Garnett Andrews was born on May 15, 1837 in Washington, Georgia, United States. He was a descendant of the family which settled in Virginia in 1635, when James Andrews received an extensive grant of lands in that colony. John Andrews was a Revolutionary soldier who, soon afterward, removed to Georgia. His wife was Ann Goode of Virginia, and their son, Garnett Andrews, was a judge of one of the superior courts of Georgia for twenty-seven years and married Annulet Ball.
Andrews was educated in the Male Academy at Washington, Georgia, and had just graduated from the law school at the University of Georgia when the state seceded in 1861.
In 1864, detailed to organize a regiment by means of the voluntary enlistment of foreigners among the Federal prisoners, he raised such a regiment, officially known first as the "Second Foreign Legion" and later as the "8th Confederate Battalion of Infantry, " but soon popularly known as the "Galvanized Yankees. "
On April 11, 1865, Andrews, with his "Galvanized Yankees, " was ordered to hold Salisbury, North Carolina, against the advance of Gen. Stoneman. Seizing a railroad train and manning it with men from his troops, he entered the town on one side as Stoneman was entering it on the other. A bloody battle, fought in ignorance of Lee's surrender on April 9, ensued, in which Andrews was again severely wounded.
At the close of the war, after recovering from his wounds, he went to Yazoo City, Mississippi. Deciding to locate there, he began the practise of law, which he continued with marked success until his removal from the state in 1882.
At that time his law partner was John Sharp Williams, then a young man, but afterward a distinguished senator. While living in Mississippi, Andrews commanded a militia company known as the Yazoo Rifles, edited the Yazoo Herald and served in the legislature in 1879 and 1880.
In 1884, he published Andrews' Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of Mississippi.
In 1882, Andrews removed to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he soon enjoyed a lucrative practise and a high place at the bar. He was elected mayor of Chattanooga in 1891, and served one term of two years, declining to be a candidate for reelection.
Tall, handsome, and always faultlessly dressed, with something of the soldier in his bearing, he was a striking figure in any company.
Courtly in demeanor, impatient with anything like dishonesty, and with an abundance of physical and moral courage, he was a gentleman of the old school.
On August 23, 1867, he married Rosalie Champe Beirne of Monroe County, West Virginia, a grand-daughter of Col. Andrew Beirne, a native of Ireland, who came to this country in 1793, was afterward a member of Congress, and commanded a regiment, equipped at his own expense, in the War of 1812.
Andrews and his wife were parents to seven children.
She died at the age of three.
He died in infancy.
He died at the age of two.
