Man Is Never Defeated Until He Gives Up

Text Source: "Alabama Confederate", edited by Perry Outlaw, vol. 14, number 1, January 1995 (newsletter of the Alabama Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans)

Capt. John Newton Sloan, "a man who could not be defeated because he would not give up."

John Newton Sloan was born in Pickens County, South Carolina, on February 8, 1829. As a young man he moved to Mississippi and settled in Wallerville, Pontotoc County (now a part of Union County). On December 15, 1853, he was married to Susan P. Coleman, a union that would produce four children and last for 44 years.

When war fell upon the south, John enlisted in the 45th Mississippi Infantry where "his bravery and worth being so apparent that he was made a Captain." During the Battle of Chickamauga, a cannon ball tore away the lower part of his face. Left for dead, he lay on the field for the greater part of the day. Much of this time he was conscious and during one of those conscious periods he was able to take a scrap of paper and a stub of a pencil from his pocket and laboriously scrawled a note stating, "I am not dead" and somehow managed to stick the note on a rail fence post against which he was lying. Just before dark, a Baptist minister, Rev. Charles H. Otkins, rode along the rode by the fence. Afterwards, he said he never knew what made him notice the paper on the post but he did read it and discovered Captain Sloan in the grass beside the fence.

Captain Sloan recovered in the days before plastic-surgery in a field hospital with nothing but the most primitive facilities for healing. The word courage seems a little threadbare when applied to Captain Sloan for he had more than courage and more than gallantry. He possessed a formidable faith in life itself and an indestructible will to live or he would never have returned home. He did return home, joined the Baptist Church, and in the years following the war moved to Pontotoc. An artificial chin was contrived for him and he lived on a liquid diet but he refused to allow himself to be denied a full life. A person would have to listen very carefully when he spoke but this was the only way he was slowed down.

He entered public life and became Chancery Clerk, an office he held for 18 years. He became a member of Pontotoc Lodge No. 81, F&AM and was secretery of the order for many years. He was also a member of Shield's Royal Arch Chapter No. 18 where he was a member of the Council. In his late years, John was compelled to give up all active work due to "increased feebleness and declining health but a man of his energy and love for his family could not remain idle, so much of his time when physically able he spent in directing the cultivation of garden and orchard which was a pleasant and congenial occupation when he was a younger and stronger man."

John died "from a complication of diseases at his home Monday night at ten o'clock, December 13, 1897, after a lingering illness of many months." He was 68 years old. "The funeral was held at the home Wednesday morning, December 15, the forty-fourth anniversary of his marriage." The body was consigned to its last resting place with a Masonic ceremony. The life of John Newton Sloan is a beautiful example of man's indestructible will to live, to rise above obstacles that may be encountered, and rings true again the fact that man is never defeated until he gives up. We of this modern age have much to learn from the "never-give-up" spirit of the old Confederate soldiers.