Louis E. Simpson was born in 1840, in Smith County, and was the son of Thos. And Atlanta (Ellison) Simpson, and one of seven children, five living. The father was born near Frankfort, Ky., in 1806, was a son of Jas. Simpson, an early pioneer of Kentucky, and of Irish ancestry. Thomas lost his father when a boy, and at about fifteen years of age came with his mother to Smith County, where he remained until his death in 1862, one of the wealthiest farmers in Smith County. His wife, to whom he was married in about his twenty-fourth year, was born in West Virginia, about 1804, and died in 1868, a member of the Missionary Baptist Church.
At nineteen he left home and school, and entered Company F, Twenty-fourth Tennessee Infantry, under Col. Ellison, and was in all Gen. Bragg’s engagements from Shilo to Mission Ridge, where he was captured and taken to Rock Island, Ill. In 1865, by the earnest petition of his mother to Vice-President Johnson, he was paroled by President Lincoln, and returned home in a feeble condition from Rheumatism, and after his recovery-resumed work on the farm.
In January 1867, he married Nancy J., daughter of Willis and Martha Dowell, of Smith County, where she was born in 1846. Their eight children are William T., Mattie, Charles W., James L., Eddie, Della. Robt. D. And Horace L. Mrs. Simpson died in June 1885, a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. He has remained on the old homestead almost entirely, until 1884, when he bought a farm near Alexandria, where he moved for the purpose of educating his children. Since 1886 he has lived in Alexandria, one of her wealthiest citizens, owning about 540 acres of land, part of which in Smith County has been in the family for several generations, and but a very small part of his wealth has been inherited. He is an active Democrat, and first voted for Seymour. He is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.