Background
SORREL, Gilbert Moxley was born on February 23, 1838 in Savannah, Georgia, United States, United States. Son of Francis and Matilda A. (Moxley) Sorrel.
SORREL, Gilbert Moxley was born on February 23, 1838 in Savannah, Georgia, United States, United States. Son of Francis and Matilda A. (Moxley) Sorrel.
Public school.
His sister was married to the future General William W. Mackall. Sorrel was a Presbyterian. He was a clerk in the Banking Department of the Central Railroad of Georgia and a member of a Savannah Militia Company in 1860.
When the Civil War began, he volunteered for service in the Confederate Army. He served as captain and voluntary aide-de-camp to General James Longstreet at the battle of First Manassas, and in September 1861, he was named adjutant general of Longstreet's Brigade. Thereafter he was present during every engagement of the 1st Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia until the wounding of Longstreet at the Wilderness, including Seven Pines, the Seven Days, Sharpsburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and the Knoxville campaign.
On October 24, 1864, following a chest wound which he suffered at Petersburg, Sorrel was promoted to brigadier general and was named assistant adjutant general for the Army of Northern Virginia and chief of staff for the 1st Corps. Afterwards he returned to the field, where he was wounded at Hatcher’s Run, Virginia, in February 1865. There is no record of his surrender.
After the war, he was a merchant, businessman, and steamship company official in Savannah. Sorrel also completed his memoirs. Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer, published posthumously in 1905.
"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.