behind AotW

Son of a prosperous planter, John N Henderson was 18 years old in July 1861 when he enlisted as a Private in Company E of the 5th Texas Infantry in Washington, TX. He was not yet 20 when he was shot in the left arm in combat at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862. He lost his arm above the elbow to amputation and was sent home, disabled for further field service.

In October 1864 Brigadier General J.B. Robertson, commanding state reserve troops in Texas, appointed John to his staff as a Captain and Aide-de-Camp; the uniform he’s wearing above.

After the war Henderson was a successful lawyer, district attorney, state senator, and judge in Texas. Here he is in about 1868 with his first wife, the former Hester Hubert:

Both of these excellent photographs [top, below] are online in the Tennessee Virtual Archives collection. There are at least two more photos of John in that collection: one taken at about the time he enlisted in 1861 and one dating from about 1894, when he was appointed a judge on the Texas Court of Appeals in Austin.