General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSo I find a smalltown TX newspaper story about some confederates erecting a new memorial this week
in an old graveyard; and I think I'll poke into it a bit
The genealogy sites love old cemeteries, so I can find that one: the first burials there were about 1870; and there's a photo of his tombstone. It's plain: initials and last name, the vital dates, a with-Jesus sentiment. He was born in Kentucky around 1808 and died in Texas about thirty years after the war ended. There's nothing whatsoever on the stone about the civil war, as if it hadn't been particularly important to remember his role in tha
But the confederates are calling him Private So-and-So in their memorial ceremony. On a genealogy site, I find what unit he joined when and also when he mustered-out. He was only in that unit about a year
So I try to track him down further. He's not in the data base I check. It's a bit tricky, because there were two different confederate groups recruited in Kentucky with that name -- and also a union group with almost exactly the same name. The confederate groups began clandestine recruitment the year after he reportedly mustered-out. The union group, on the other hand, began to organize the day before he reportedly joined and disbanded the day he reportedly mustered-out
The confederates, of course, always assumed Kentucky was with them and gave Kentucky a star on the stars-and-bars, but the confederates' 1861 attempt to seize Kentucky by force ensured that the public voted unionist. It sounds to me like Private So-and-So wasn't a confederate but an aging man who joined a unionist home-guard unit until the federals had better control of the badly divided state
His son (born in the mid 1830s), it turned out, was a genuine confederate, who joined a Texas unit, survived the war, and lived past 1910. His grave is in another nearby cemetery, and the smalltown Texas confederates put a memorial there too, a few years ago
Now I'm thinking that after the war the old guy moved from Kentucky to Texas to be with his son. And reconstruction era Texas was a really bad place to be a unionist: there were a lot of violent bushwhackers riding about, shooting or hanging unionists and burning down their houses. So maybe the old guy decided discretion was the better part of valor and didn't ever get too chatty about the war
struggle4progress
(118,041 posts)The news stories:
http://www.dailytribune.net/news/csa-memorial-dedication-set-sept/article_65c45604-5e40-11e5-b433-bb6be016377d.html
http://www.news-journal.com/news/2012/sep/08/civil-war-veteran-descendants-honored-at-gilmer-ce/
The cemeteries:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txupshur/Cemetery/OakHillCemA-F.html
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txupshur/Cemetery/SoulesChapelCem.html
The union unit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_Regiment_Kentucky_Volunteer_Cavalry
http://www.gilkison.net/ky10cav/company_H.html
The confederate units:
http://www.kykinfolk.com/adair/confederate.htm
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ky/military/rosters/conf/10kycav.txt
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~varussel/10thkycav.html
malaise
(267,823 posts)I love your posts
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)Americans still long for, but we've lost it and we'll never get it back. A common thug could move out west, change his name, and become a pillar of the community. A prostitute in NYC could get on a train to the plains, marry a farmer, and become a mother to prominent people. You can't run from your past and start a new life now. That's why I think some people want their guns and become survivalists. They're trying to bring back an America that's long gone, and was never as good as it was made out to be.
struggle4progress
(118,041 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)I'd never heard that one before. Those were interesting times. What we'll they be saying about us in 100 years?