DOB:  About 1840? DOD:  August 17, 1861 Age at Enlistment: 21 Date of Enlistment:  July 23, 1861 Place of Enlistment:  Nashville, TN Rank at Enlistment:  Private Rank at Discharge:  Private Casualty:  Died of disease in Big Spring, VA on August 17, 1861 Comments:  He is commonly referred to as Hiram Sweeney, but his real maybe Lemuel Hiram Sweeney.  No Hiram Sweeney appears in the Census records before the Civil War in Middle Tennessee.  There is a Lemuel H. Sweeney that appears in the 1850 & 1860 Census and disappears after the war.  Lemuel had a brother named John, who named his son Hiram.  This could be in honor of his dead brother.  If Lemuel is Hiram from the 1st Tennessee than he was born and raised in Leiper’s Fork.  The 1860 Census shows him attending school so he may have been a Harpeth Academy student. We do know that Hiram died of Measles at Big Springs, VA in August 1861.  According to a Review and Journal article from June 21, 1883 written only by some who refers to himself as "R": "Here [at Warm Springs] we lost one of the best men, and the first man that died belonging to the company.  Hiram Sweeney died in camp and was buried on the side of the mountain.  He was the first man and I believe the only man  that was buried under military honors.  The regiment turned out under arms and did honors to the soldier, for he was a soldier and none better." The article is mistaken in stating he was the first one to die.  Moses Farmer died ten days before Hiram.