For solid worth, substantial and enduring results, and patriotic service, no Alabamian enrolled among the worthies of the state excelled General Charles Miller Shelley. He was built for service, and was endowed with an energy practically boundless and unconquerable. Denied the boon of an education, excepting to a limited degree, he appropriated readily examples and suggestions, built them into practical force, which he wielded with apt execution as a soldier, citizen, and patriot. The statement of these qualities furnishes an outline of the character of this worthy citizen and brave soldier.

Seized by the enthusiasm which possessed so many of the Alabama youth when first the cloud of war flecked the national horizon, Mr. Shelley joined himself to a military company which went of its own will to Fort Morgan before the war had actually begun. The forts and ports along the seaboard of the South were supposed, at that time, to afford the first theater of the coming conflict. These volunteers eventually returned home, a more thorough organization was effected, and in the company formed at Talladega, Shelley became the captain. This company was one of the original Fifth Alabama Regiment, of which the brilliant Rodes was the first colonel.

For a period Captain Shelley served at Pensacola, till the regiment was ordered to Virginia. As a part of Ewell’s brigade the regiment was in close proximity to Manassas Junction, and had a sharp brush with the enemy at Farr’s Cross Road, but did not share in the first battle of Manassas.

At the close of the first term of service of enlistment, Captain Shelley resigned as captain, returned to Alabama and raised another regiment, of which he became the colonel. This was the Thirtieth Regiment of Alabama Volunteers, which regiment was assigned to duty in the western army, where it won great distinction for its fighting qualities. In the memorable campaign of 1862, in Tennessee and Kentucky, Colonel Shelley’s regiment shared throughout. Subsequently the regiment was transferred to Mississippi and attached to Tracey’s brigade, which saw hard service at Port Gibson. The first hard fight on the field in which the Thirtieth Alabama Regiment shared was at Baker’s Creek, or Champion Hills, where Colonel Shelley received special mention at the hands of General Stephen D. Lee, the hero of that battle. Later still, the regiment was at Vicksburg and shared in the result of that ill-fated city.

In the series of conflicts in northern Georgia and in all the fighting between that region and Atlanta, and on to Jonesboro, the Thirtieth Alabama Regiment was conspicuous. At Jonesboro, Ga., Colonel Shelley was placed in command of a brigade, which position he held for a few weeks, when he was placed at the head of Cantey’s brigade and given a commission as a brigadier. He was with Hood on the return march into Tennessee, and in the ill-starred battle of Franklin his brigade was a heavy sufferer, having lost six hundred and seventy men out of a total of eleven hundred whom he led into the fight. By an adroit movement at Franklin, General Shelley saved from capture the entire corps of General Stewart, for which skill and gallantry he received special mention at the hands of General Hood. It is a matter of record that but for the generalship shown by Shelley at Franklin, that battle would have been far more disastrous in its results. He came out of the fight with little more than four hundred men in his brigade, half of which number was captured at Nashville.

After these convulsions in Tennessee, contemporaneous with the onward march of Sherman to the sea, thence into North Carolina, where General Joseph E. Johnston was restored to his command, now a fragment of its former self, General Shelley was assigned to duty there. All the twelve Alabama regiments belonging to the army were thrown together into one brigade in North Carolina, and placed under the command of General Shelley. The surrender of Johnston’s army resulted in the return of General Shelley to Selma as a paroled soldier.

In the resistance against the encroachments of a dominant force during the direful days of reconstruction, no man in Alabama rendered more patriotic service than Charles M. Shelley. At different times, during the succeeding years, General Shelley was made the campaign manager of the Democratic party in the state, contending often against subtle odds, and to his resourcefulness of leadership was the party largely indebted in its gradual emergence from the throes with which it was afflicted for years. During the closing years of his life General Shelley became one of the most noted leaders of the Democratic party in Alabama. During the first administration of Mr. Cleveland, he served by presidential appointment as the third auditor of the United States treasury. He was a candidate for the governorship in the campaign which resulted in the election of Hon. William J. Samford. General Shelley died in Birmingham on January 20, 1907.

In a brief review like this, scant justice to the worth of so eminent a man as General Shelley was, both as a soldier and a citizen, is given. Much of his service is hastily passed over, and if at all alluded to, it is in a most generalized manner. The salient facts of his eventful life are barely more than touched, but even from so short a recital of his services, certain unquestioned facts fix his fame.

General Shelley was an intrepid soldier whose pluck in the face of danger was unusual. So far as opportunity was afforded for the exercise of independent action in the tactics of war, he displayed rare qualities of skill as a commander. He met all exigencies without shrinking, and invariably bore his part with the heroism of the genuine soldier that he was. Nor was he less inclined to assume the obligations imposed in later struggles for Democratic supremacy in Alabama. Not a few who rose to political distinction in the state were indebted to the means afforded by the diligent work of General Shelley. The service rendered by him is a part of the state’s history during the last half century. In certain instances where junctures arose, it is doubtful that any other could have met them with equal efficiency. No strained eulogism is needed to tell the story of his valiant service—the unvarnished facts are sufficient. Energy, diligence, resourcefulness, courage and a perennial optimism were the qualities displayed by General Shelley in the long service rendered by him to the state of Alabama.