Background
BOWEN, John Stevens was born on October 30, 1830 in Savannah, Georgia, United States, United States.
BOWEN, John Stevens was born on October 30, 1830 in Savannah, Georgia, United States, United States.
Private school, United States Military Academy.
He was probably the son of William Parker Bowen, an unsuccessful merchant, and his wife, Ann Elizabeth (Wilkins). The younger Bowen attended Milledgeville Academy and graduated thirteenth in a class of fifty-one from the U.S. Military Academy in 1853. He was a Presbyterian.
He was married and had a daughter. After attending the Carlisle Cavalry School, Bowen was commissioned a second lieutenant and served on the frontier from 1854 to 1856. He resigned his commission and returned to Savannah in 1856, where he was an architect and a lieutenant colonel in the Georgia Militia before moving to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1857.
From 1859 to 1861, he was a captain in the Missouri Militia. At the outbreak of war, he joined the Confederate Army and commanded the 2nd Regiment of Frost’s Brigade. Bowen served as acting chief of staff to General Daniel M. Frost in early 1861.
In Memphis he raised the 1st Regiment of Missouri infantry, of which he was colonel, and he served under General Leonidas Polk at Columbus, Kentucky. After being wounded during the battle of Shiloh, where he served under Genera] John C. Breckinridge, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general on March 14, 1862. In 1863, he resisted Grant at Bruinsburg during the Vicksburg campaign.
Distinguished for his bravery at Port Gibson, Mississippi, he attained the rank of major general on May 25, 1863. During the siege of Vicksburg, he contracted dysentery and surrendered with his troops. He was shortly thereafter paroled and died on July 13, 1863, at Raymond, Mississippi.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.