Thomas Jefferson Key was born January 17, 1831,
in Bolivar,Tennessee. At the age of 11 he was apprenticed to the publisher of a Tuscumbia, Alabama weekly
newspaper, which he subsequently purchased. In his early twenties, Thomas Key sold that newspaper and moved
to Kansas City, Kansas. There he began publishing a pro-southern newspaper. Despite being in the heart of
the abolitionist Kansas Territory, Key edited his newspaper as he believed. He was instrumental in writing
the pro-slavery state constitution in Lecompton. One written by the abolitionists later replaced that
constitution. He soon discovered that the Southern element in Kansas was fighting a losing battle because
of the tremendous wave of immigration coming from the north and east. Then, as a result of his beliefs, he
received numerous threats on his life by the Kansas Free Staters. Eventually the newspaper failed and Key
moved to Helena, Arkansas.
Key was 30 years old when the War Between the
States broke out. He joined the Confederate Army as a private in the 15th Arkansas Infantry. However,
his talents were quickly recognized and General Patrick Cleburne commissioned him a Second Lieutenant in the
artillery. Serving in Calvert's Battery, he gained combat experience fighting in northern Mississippi, in Bragg's
Kentucky campaign, and in the battle at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. In that battle he commanded the battery
that won fame as "Key's Battery". Promotion came quickly to the rank of captain. After the Battle of Chickamauga
on September 19 and 20, 1863, Generals D. H. Hill, Patrick Cleburne, and Leonidas Polk all cited him for
bravery stating that in the fiercest part of the fight he ran his battery to within 60 yards of the enemy line
to increase its effectiveness. He later fought in the battles of Missionary Ridge, Ringgold Gap, Tunnel Hill,
and Hood's ill-fated campaign in Tennessee. In the "hundred days" fighting between Dalton and Atlanta Georgia, he won
the rank of Major, and was in the fiercest of the battles. He finished the war fighting in General Joseph Johnston's army
in North Carolina.
After the war, Key continued in his career as a newspaper editor in Louisville, Kentucky and then in
Montgomery, Alabama. In 1897 he moved his paper, the Southern Agriculturist and Home, to Nashville, Tennessee. He died there April 5, 1908,
and was laid to rest in Spring Hill Cemetery, near Nashville.
This poem accompanied his obituary published in the Southern Agriculturist.
