122nd US Colored Infantry

Organized at Louisville, Ky., December 31, 1864. Ordered to Virginia January 12, 1865. Attached to 25th Corps, Army of the James, Unassigned, to April, 1865. Dept. of Texas to February, 1866.

SERVICE: Duty in the Defences of Portsmouth, Va., till February, 1865. Siege operations against Petersburg and Richmond, Va., February to April, 1865. Fall of Petersburg and Richmond April 2-3. Duty in the Dept. of Virginia till June, 1865. Moved to Brazos Santiago, Texas, June and July. Duty at Brownsville and at various points on the Rio Grande till February, 1866. Mustered out February 8, 1866.

The records for this regiment have not yet been indexed - meaning it is not yet possible to search by location or name. Identifying men in this regiment requires painstaking, page-by-page research of thousdands of documents. It is likely there are many more men with ties to Williamson County, TN who served in this regiment. This is true for all the men who served in the 56th through the 138th US Colored Infantry regiments.

Thus far, research has only revealed one man with Williamson County ties who served in the 122nd US Colored Infantry:  Pvt. Afred Rutherford, aka Alfred Browning. He was born in Williamson County around 1830. At some point in his childhood, he was taken or sold to Logan County, KY, where he was held as John Browning's property near Russellville, KY. In the period before the War, he was hired out by Spencer Rutherford. On September 24, 1864, he enlisted in Company F of the regiment in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He appears to have been a substitute for a drafted man. During his service, he would have been sent east to Virginia where they participated in the siege of Richmond at the end of the War. During the post-War period, the regiment was sent to the US border in Texas. He mustered out with his regiment on February 8, 1866, in Corpus Christie, Texas. Following his service, Rutherford appears to have moved back to Kentucky where he married his wife Fannie. He used the name Alfred Browning during this time. He died there around 1908. Both Pvt. Rutherford and his widow received pensions for his service.  No headstone has been located for Pvt. Rutherford. His paver was sponsored in 2025.

Resources:

• National Park Service website