A. J. Turner

Augustus John Turner (October 12, 1818 – May 14, 1905), known as “A. J. Turner”, was an American composer, band leader and music professor. He was the first director of the Stonewall Brigade Band of Staunton, Virginia, the oldest continuous community band funded by tax moneys in the United States. They were mustered into the Stonewall Brigade under Stonewall Jackson of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Turner served through the Valley Campaign, the Seven Days Battles, and was at the Battle of Cedar Mountain. Turner was a professor of music at the Wesleyan Female Institute, the Staunton Male Academy, and the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Institute. He also played a part in the temperance movement. Ancestry and early years Augustus John Turner was born on October 12, 1818, in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, to Samuel M. Turner and Mahala Johnson Chapman. His father Samuel was a farmer living near the site of Fort Prince. Both Turner’s grandfathers fought in the Revolutionary War. His father Samuel’s father was James Turner, who settled in South Carolina near Coulter’s Ford on the Pacolet River with his father George Henry Turner, after the death of his mother Hannah Middleton in Virg