Eugene Bolling, Confederate officer, was born in 1832 in Tennessee to Yelverton de Mallet Bolling and Sophia Sully of South Carolina. The family relocated to Montgomery, Montgomery County, Alabama, in 1850. Bolling married Carolina E. Gayle in 1853, then moved from Edgefield County, South Carolina, to settle in Galveston County, Texas. He worked as a farmer prior to the Civil War.
Bolling's service record indicates that he enlisted on June 7, 1861, with a rank of captain.
On June 30, 1862, his company and twelve others were mustered into Confederate service at Brenham, Texas, in Washington County. Bolling held the rank of captain in Company G of Nichol's Ninth Regiment but soon commanded Company A of the First Battalion of the First Texas Infantry, known as Waul's Texas Legion.
On May 17, 1863, Waul's Legion was ordered into the confines of Vicksburg and assigned to Maj. Gen. Carter L. Stevenson's division. Captain Bolling was slightly injured during the defense of the city and sometime after was promoted to the rank of major in command of the First Battalion of Waul's Legion following the death of Maj. A. Cameron.
On July 4, 1863, Bolling and his unit surrendered to Union forces at Vicksburg and were paroled on July 5, 1863. Following parole the members of Waul's Texas Legion were returned to Texas where they were reorganized. Bolling then applied to be relieved from field duty for the remainder of the war as a result of a surgeon's opinion that a heart condition affected his service. Bolling's request was granted, and for the remainder of the war he served as major of companies F and S of Timmons's Regiment in the confines of Texas.
He surrendered on June 2, 1865, with the other soldiers under the command of Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith.
After the war Eugene Bolling married Mary Bolling, who survived him in Galveston County and later moved to Grayson County. In 1866 he served as a director of the National Bank of Texas in Galveston. The last known location of Eugene S. Bolling was in Galveston County in 1869. [SIC] According to his findagrave memorial page, he died 02 August 1870 in Cross Keys, Alabama.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations From the State of Texas, NARA microfilm series M323, roll 263, National Archives, Washington D.C. Robert A. Hasskarl and Leif R. Hasskarl, Waul's Texas Legion, 1862–1865 (Ada, Oklahoma: Robert A. Hasskarl, 1985). L.L. Knight, comp., Their Last Full Measure: Texas Confederate Casualty Lists, Volume II, 1863 (Arlington, Texas: G.T.T. Publishing, 1997). Stewart Sifakis, Compendium of the Confederate Armies. Texas (New York: Facts on File, 1995). Laura Simmons, "Waul's Legion From Texas to Mississippi," Texana, VII (Spring 1969). Brett J. Derbes
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.
Brett J. Derbes, "BOLLING, EUGENE S.," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbobd), accessed May 08, 2012. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
