Kennard, James M., 1839-1914

James Massey Kennard was the chief of ordnance for the Confederacy’s Army of Tennessee during the Civil War. Born on April 5, 1839, in Claiborne County, Mississippi, Kennard graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1861, at the start of the Civil War. He immediately resigned from the U.S. Army and volunteered for Confederate service. During his travel south from New York, he received a commission in the Confederate army and sent to the Army of Tennessee, where he was made chief of ordnance. He achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel and oversaw Confederate ordnance supply issues (artillery, weapons, ammunition, gun powder, etc.) in the western theater for the rest of the war.

After the end of the Civil War, Kennard briefly served as adjutant general of the Mississippi militia before moving to St. Louis, Missouri, to work as an editor in a newspaper. Later he relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, to work for the Manufacturer’s Record, a weekly periodical that specialized in industrial and financial stories, catered to a southern audience. That publication company then moved him to Birmingham, Alabama, as a correspondent and writer specializing in stories about iron ore and iron manufacturing. He remained in Alabama until his death on January 27, 1914. He was married to Corinne Augusta Childers, and had no known children. Kennard is buried at Confederate Memorial Park Cemetery #2 in Chilton County, Alabama. (FindaGrave; Birmingham Post-Herald, Birmingham, AL, January 28, 1914)