John Thomas "J.T." Mann was born in Henry County, Alabama in 1839 to the union of Young and Sarah Mann. His father was a farmer by trade from the Crawford, Georgia area. His father was also a veteran of the Creek Indian War of 1836 where he was Captain of Mann's Company, Wood's Battalion of the 8th Brigade of the George Militia Infantry. He would again enlist in 1864 with the 1st Gorgon Cavalry Squadron Georgia's State Guard as well as the 2nd Georgia Cavalry. His young son John would also answer the call to arms, but for whatever reason he enlisted on August 3, 1861 in Amite City, Louisiana. Here he became a "Louisiana Tiger" with Company "C" of the 3rd Louisiana Battalion known as Bogart Guards under Captain George Meyhi. Transferred to the Army of Norther Virginia, he fought in the Seven Day's Battle and at Gaine's Mill and was wounded in both. He was seriously wounded at the second Battle of Bull Run in 1862. Following his eventual recovery, he was approached with an offer of a captaincy to become a spy of which he readily agreed. To add credibility to his cover, he was provided with an expired furlough and a military order offering a $50.00 reward for his apprehension as a deserter. He made his way from Apalachicola to Fort Barrancas where he began gathering information and passed it on to General Dabney H. Maury in Mobile. They devised a plan to blow up the powder magazine at Ft. Barrancas as a diversion to a southern attack. To bring this about, John befriended a Union sergeant from Vermont and on the night in question he set the sergeant's pocket watch up 90 minutes. After drinking wine, John called it a night at supposedly 11:00 PM and left the tent. He carried a ball of twine soaked in turpentine then lit it and threw it in the powder room. But an alert unseen sentry grabbed it, threw it out, and fired at John grazing his right ear. Unknown to John, General Maury had already terminated the follow-up attack. John ran for Warrington and the home of a southern sympathizer before being caught four nights later and returned. The angry soldiers threw a rope over a nearby building's joist and hung poor John without benefit of trial. But, his Vermont companion cut him down just prior to dying from strangulation. The sergeant swore that John didn't leave his tent till 1:00 PM because that was what his watch said. John was released after the court martial and left the area to return to the Army of Northern Virginia. There, he would fight his final battle at Fort Stedman on March 25, 1865 just prior to Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
John would return home to Henry County, Alabama to marry Miss Mary Jane Crawford (1849-1924), daughter of Robert A. and Elizabeth A. E. Crawford on January 17, 1867. The 1870 census found the couple in Marianna, Florida where John worked as a school teacher. There, he also became a minister and took up the calling for the rest of his life in such places as Van Zandt, Texas and Fitzgerald, Georgia. In 1906, he began a tour through the Southwest to promote his books concerning his faith. He stopped along the way to preach in Pensacola and attempted to find the Vermont sergeant that saved his life. He was unsuccessful, but he did tour Fort Barrancas to see the spot where he he was hung and brought back to life. An articulate description of his hanging is contained in his attached book "A Confederate Solider Hanged as a Spy." After his passing, he was joined by his wife Mary Jane in 1924 together with two of his children in Ft. Worth, Tarrant County, Texas.
