268 MARYLAND MANUAL.

Secretary of State: OSWALD TILGHMAN (Democrat), of
Talbot County.

Colonel Tilghman was born March 7, 1841, at Plimhimmon,
near Oxford, Talbot County. His father was General Tench
Tilghman, and his mother was a daughter of John Leeds Kerr,
United States Senator from Maryland from 1841 to 1843.
Colonel Tilghman was educated at the Maryland Military
Academy at Oxford; settled in Washington County, Texas,
in 1859, volunteered in the Confederate service in 1861 as a
private in Company B, Terry's Texas Rangers; participated
in the battle of Shiloh and in the battles before Richmond;
was aid on the staff of his kinsman, General Lloyd Tilghman,
who was killed in front of Vicksburg, Miss.; commanded the
Rock City Artillery of Nashville, Tenn., a heavy battery on the
banks of the Mississippi river, during the siege of Port Hud-
son, La. This battery took an active part in the destruction
of the United States steam Frigate Mississippi in March, 1863,
when Admiral Farragut's fleet attempted to pass the Con-
federate batteries at Port Hudson. Admiral George Dewey
was executive officer on board this frigate in this memorable
engagement. Colonel Tilghman was the only one of the four
officers in his battery not killed during the siege of Port Hud-
son. He was commended for his gallantry by Lieutenant-
Colonel P. F. De Gournay, who commanded the left wing of
the Confederate batteries. Upon the capitulation of Port Hud-
son he was sent a prisoner of war to Johnson's Island, on Lake
Erie, Ohio, where he was held till the close of the war.

Colonel Tilghman again settled in his native county, read
law with Senator Charles H. Gibson, and has been engaged
ever since in the practice of his profession and in the real estate
business in Easton, Md. He has induced to locate permanently
in Talbot County many prominent and wealthy persons, to
whom he has sold country seats, and who have contributed in a
large degree to the general prosperity of the section.

He married in 1884 Miss Belle Harrison, second daughter of
Dr. Samuel A. Harrison, the historian and annalist of Talbot
County. Their only son Samuel Harrison Tilghman, is pur-
suing a course in civil engineering at Lehigh University.

AT YORKTOWN CENTENNIAL.

On the 19th of October, 1881, Colonel Tilghman, having
been appointed by Governor William T. Hamilton one of the
two Commissioners, with the rank of Colonel, to represent the
State of Maryland at the Yorktown Centennial, wore on that
occasion the sword presented by Congress to his illustrious
ancestor, Colonel Tench Tilghman, Washington's favorite aid-
de-camp, one hundred years before for his services in bearing