Reverend Edward Lush
Southgate
Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 7 April 1865, page 3
NEWPORT NEWS
Newport, April 6, 1866, Editors of Enquirer:
Your local reporter of the city of Newport in your issue of Tuesday last, did me gross injustice by placing my name in a list of "rebel deserters". I was taken prisoner in action at Farmington, Tennessee, and was released from prison at Camp Morton Indiana, by order of the Secretary of War, on taking an oath to support the Constitution and Government of the United States and I have received an informal discharge from the Confederate army.
When General Palmer's order was issued in regard to rebel deserters, I was told by the Deputy Provost marshal of this county, Mr. Bennett, that it would be necessary for me to make an affidavit of the circumstances under which I was released from prison and permitted to return home. I made affidavit in accordance with the above statement and was assured that the register would be made in conformity thereto; but your reporter, unauthorized and contrary to the wishes and promise of Mr. Bennett, reported me as a rebel deserter.
Having left the Southern army honorably and having subsequently complied with all the requirements of the oath of allegiance, I now request that you will, by the insertion of this communication in your columns, vindicate my name from an imputation so odious and detestable as that of "deserter." Respectfully, Edward L Southgate.
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Published in the Confederate Veteran Magazine Vol. XXXIX page 267 in 1931.
Early on the morning of May 6th, 1852, Rev. E L
Southgate, retired minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and
gallant Confederate soldier passed away quietly into eternal rest at the home of
his daughter, Mrs. W C Simrall, at Covington, Kentucky.
He entered the army of the Confederacy at the age of 16, as a member of Company
B, 6th Kentucky Battalion Cavalry. He was wounded and taken prisoner and
suffered all the varied vicissitudes of war time, winning a fine record as a
soldier.
Rev. Southgate was among the many boys in gray who came back after the fierce fighting of four years of war and dedicated themselves as wholly and completely to the service of Christ as they had to the Southern cause. He was for many years a presiding elder and also served pastorates in Nashville, Tenn. and Hopkinsville, Nicholasville, Cynthiana, Frankfort, Mount Sterling, and Lexington, Kentucky.
Six children, ten grandchildren and two great-grandchildren survive him, children having passed on before. He was laid to rest in Evergreen Cemetery in Newport with three generations of his family, his grandfather having given this ground many years ago.