Anyone here descended from Confederate Southerners?

[Fenris]

Although I am about as far from proud of it as one can be, an ancestor on my father's mother's side of the family was actually a Southeast Texas doctor from Woodville (near Tyler - it's a lumber town named for the second governor of Texas) who served as a surgeon during the war. I'm starting to do research on this and I was wondering how many other DUers have ancestors who fought against the Union in the Civil War?

[DODI]

1. Union here --- great-great-great-grandfather

captured at Gettysburg - died at Andersonville.

[C.C.D.]

2. I am. (m)

In contrast though, I am quite proud of my Southern ancestors (deep East Texas dirt farmers!). They are not to blame for what is today.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

3. I've got Confederate in my grandma's family, and Union

on two sides.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

4. The vote for South Carolina to seceed from The Union...

by the SC Senate, took place in the back garden of my family's ancestral home in Abbeville SC. They did so because of a malaria epidemic in Columbia at the time.

Is that southern enough for you? ;-)

[Menshevik]

5. Yes

On my dad's side, I have an ancestor that fought with the Confederates.

On my mom's side, they fought for the Union.

Has anyone done research on their ancestors via the National Archives? I know there is a form you can use to request copies of records for a small fee, but I've been too lazy to do it. Wondering if anyone has received any interesting records...

[MO_Dem]

24. Yes, those civil war pension files are

really, really interesting! You can order them online now. I think the website is NARA.gov or something similar. You can probably find it by doing a google search for National Archives. The fee is not so small anymore, in my opinion. $37.00. But still worth every penny in my opinion.

If you're interested, and can't find the website, let me know and I'll find the link and post it here.

[Menshevik]

41. thanks, found the Natl Archive site

Yeah, price is a lot higher than what I read about (of course that was a few years ago) but it would be great to get copies of these records and pass them down to the family members.

If anyone else is interested, the site is http://www.archives.gov/research_room/orderonline.html

[DrWeird]

6. My ancestor (same full name) fought at the Battle of Bowling Green.

Union. Green River Battalion, or something like that. That's all I know. I know nothing about that battle. I should probably look it up.

[ridgerunner]

32. Here's a link

if you mean Bowling Green, KY that is http://www.thinkwestkentucky.com/civilwar/region3/bgreen.htm

[flyingfysh]

7. one on the Confederate side

This one (not a direct ancestor, but a relative) was in the branch of the family related to Davy Crockett. He had a small farm, with one slave. The slave maintained the farm while the owner went off to the war, I don't know if he ever came back.

Before he left, they buried a chest of gold in a cave. But later the cave collapsed, and the gold was never found. Years later, a farmer uncovered a gold piece with his plow. The rest is still missing.

None for either side on my wife's side, not even during the Revolution (lots of Quakers).

[salin]

8. nope

but likely have ancestors who were part of Norway's independence (on the 17th of May) from Sweden... also, reportedly, have "draft dodgers" from Germany who fled to Ireland during Bismark's time.. who then came to the US. While all my grandparents were in the US by the 1920s... none of their ancestors were in the US at the time of the Civil War.

[alphafemale]

9. Yeah. So what? Doesn't make any better or less. nt

[Shakespeare]

47. Nice hostility. He didn't say it made anybody better or worse.

Simply asking because he's doing genealogical research and found it interesting.

:eyes:

[lateo]

10. We had family on both sides...

[lenidog]

11. I have them on both sides

My great-great-great-grandfather was an officer in the 83rd PA Volunteer Infantry at Gettysburg while my great-great-great-uncle is George Edward Pickett.

[outraged2]

12. yes

My maternal grandfather's family lived in Georgia at the time, and fought with the Confederates - I'm not proud of it either. Then their descendents moved on to Texas and fought in the Texas revolution.

[TexasProgresive]

21. How'd they do that?

They had a time machine? The Texas war happened before the Civil War and the Republic of Texas became one of the United States before the Civil War and was one of the Confederate States to suceed from the Union. Maybe your relatives fought with Crocket in Texas and then later fought in the Civil War.

[outraged2]

25. sorry I messed it up

Lots of brothers uncles etc.... I knew I got it all screwed up. I tried to answer too quickly because of son's bedtime. In any case, members of my family fought in both wars.... some had moved to Texas while others stayed in Georgia. Lamar is the family name, MB Lamar was at the Battle of San Jacinto and later one of the presidents of the Republic.

[johnaries]

13. I'm not sure if my ancestors fought...

but both my parents came from the mountains of East Tennessee, a Republican stronghold. My father was conservative, but my mother was progressive. Both of them had direct Scottish ties, although both families were basically "poor share-croppers". I grew up in Nashville which is basically a "blue island" in the middle of a Red Sea (Memphis is in the same boat). Sorry for all the nautical metaphors! ANYHOW, Nashville is also the home of the Southern Baptist Convention, but the SBC was based on "individual interpretation" of the Bible, and there are a lot of Baptist Churches dropping "Baptist" from their names and a lot of SBC members are getting PISSED that some of the more "evangelical" members are making power plays to take over the SBC. Personally, I gave up on all that shit a long time ago and became a Taoist. Eventually, the Religious Right and the Republican Party will self-destruct from the inside. I'm just not sure if I can wait... I would LOVE to hurry up the process any way I can!

[Mabeline]

14. Both...

from South Carolina to Kentucky to Pennsylvania.

[argyl]

15. Yeah. Great grandfather from Georgia fought for the South.Not a slaveowner

thank God. Came to Texas one step ahead of the law shortly after the end of the Civil War.

[SarahB]

16. Yes.

My dad grew up in Louisiana. There's a bunch of them apparently.

[kitchen girl]

17. The roots of my family tree spread

across both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Mostly, it depended upon which families had moved north and which had stayed in the south. I'm related to a fairly prominent Confederate General, Turner Ashby. And I have my gg-grandfather's powderhorn - he fought for the Union. His grandfather lived in Virginia and owned slaves. And yeah, it all makes me more than a little uneasy.

[Somawas]

18. Ancestors on both sides

fought for the CSA. One died at Chancellorsville. Another collateral ancestor was Jeff Davis defense attorney. Picture is on display at Casemate Prison.

[Somawas]

19. Oddly enough

Listening to the news reports today on the medical marijuana issue, the arguments in favor of the California law sound remarkably like the Southern Doctrine of Nullification argued for in secessionist legislatures before the war.

[WMliberal]

20. yeah, a little

on my paternal grandmother's side. Her family came to America from England in the 1600's afterbeing given 10000 acres in the Tidewater section of Virginia. They sold the land in the 1740's and moved to Texas. That family fought in the War for Texan Independence and the Civil War. The family still lives in Austin.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

22. Yes, a lot of them.

My mother did about seven years of geneological research, FULL time.

She discovered we have been in Texas since 1782, and we have been in America (really not even colonies yet) since 1704 or thereabouts. Before that we were mostly in Wales, with a bit of intermarriage with the French (from Nice).

[Jack Rabbit]

23. I have ancestors on either side

On Dad's side of the family, my great grandfather fought for the Union in a volunteer unit from Wisconsin.

On my mother's side, my great-great grandfather, who lived in Missouri, had a son born in early 1861. He named the boy Jefferson Davis Young. I guess that says something about where his sentiments laid.

Also on my mother's side, another set of great-great grandparents left South Carolina for Indiana in 1861. I can only presume it was to escape the war.

[Individualist]

26. Great grandfather was a southerner who was a Union soldier

In northeast TN, it wasn't at all unusual to have family members on both sides of the conflict. Great grandfather's mother-in-law had a son in the Confederate Army, and son-in-law who was Union Army. Great grandmother and the children stayed with her mother while great grandfather was away fighting. One time Confederate soldiers came to the house and demanded great, great grandmother throw her daughter and children out of the house or they'd burn it down. She replied "Go ahead and burn the house down, but I won't turn my daughter and grandchildren out in the street". The soldiers were shamed by her courage and left without causing further trouble.

[Zuni]

44. Eastern Tenn was a major Union stronghold in the Confederacy

West Virginia also was, but it seceeded from Virginia

[Mallifica]

27. Apparently,

or so I am told, my great-great-grandmother was a Lee - of the same Lees as Robert E.

[LDS Jock]

28. I have a number of them

fighting for Virginia, Alabama, and Arkansas. Sometimes you'll find the records too of them passing down slaves to relatives. It's shocking to read about it, just as it's shocking when you realize desegregation was not so long ago.

[Endangered Specie]

29. Thankfully, a good deal of me wasnt around for that mess

but, a good part is from south (and I mean south) Georgia, so god only knows what they did.

[malmapus]

30. All Confederate here

War took a big toll on my family, one part in particular lost 4 of
6 sons, most of them during Shermans march through Georgia.

Most of my relatives served with 30th Georgia Infantry, Company G Fayette Volunteers, another in 7th Regt, Georgia Infantry, and 53rd Georgia Infantry, and found another who was in Cobbs Georgia Legion.

[solinvictus]

31. Confederate...

On my maternal grandmother's side. My ancestor was a farmer who was an infantryman. When the Yankees came to get him, he hid his rifle in a lard barrel and stashed himself up a chimney to escape. He was successful and fought again another day.

[shesemsmom]

33. I'm not

but my best friend, who is 75 is. She is the Granddaughter if a confederate soldier. She is a member of the Daughters of the confederacy. and every proud of it. Although since her long untimely illness has not been active.

[Lex]

34. I live in a red state & my ancestor was a Union General

who helped burn down Atlanta (not Sherman).

He was a cool guy and I'm proud of him (well, the Atlanta thing isn't all that great, but still): http://www.jal.cc.il.us/johnlogan.html

[MisterP]

35. branches in Ky. and Tenn., both sides of Civil War

other half of my family was recovering from the effects of the Napoleonic Wars and Germany agglutinating from several kingdoms and principalities (Bavarian mountain village)

[floridaguy]

36. It doesn't make sense to apologize for Confederate ancestors

First of all, you don't pick your ancestors, they sort of pick you. My ancestors came to Virginia in 1620, so of course they fought on the Confederate side. They also fought in the Revolutionary War. Now, personally, I don't like the confederate flag, because of all the hatred and ill-feelings associated with it, but I'm proud of my ancestors and my family, and I somewhat resent the negative implication.

[Dorian Gray]

37. Both my families

(Dad, Irish... Mom, German) immigrated to America in the 20th Century. No Confederates or Yanks in my family. (Other than the ones currently living in New York and Florida!)

[Elidor]

38. Not only rebels, at least one was a slaveowner

In fact, the Governor of Georgia once put out an arrest warrant for my ancestor - for the murder of his own slave. (I have the text of it somewhere.) Not a pleasant thing to find out about.

And all those poor dumb rebels in my tree. What a blow. I'm a staunch Union man, and I think Bobby Lee was the devil.

[The Zanti Regent]

39. On my mother's side

She was from Socastee, SC, her great grandfather was a confederate general.

Interestingly, my dad's great grandfather was a Union general...

[Zomby Woof]

40. several

Most direct ancestor is my great-great-grandfather (my still-living 86 year old paternal grandmother's maternal grandfather), a private who served in the 1st Alabama Regiment under Lee's command during the siege at Petersburg. He was laid up at the hospital in Richmond with dysentery - we have a copy of his hospital discharge papers, signed with his "X".

He never went back to Alabama. He got married some years after the war, settling in Virginia, then headed across the border into Tennessee with my infant great-grandmother carried along in a large iron kettle.

[CatWoman]

42. Well, Ah dee-clare

Beauregard Fenris!!!!!

:D

[Zuni]

43. No, but I do know descendants of Admiral Dahlgren of the US Navy

they live in Annapolis. I also know Admiral Kimmel's grandson. Admiral Kimmel was in charge at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and was later scapegoated.

[AlFrankenFan]

45. A relative or 2 from Virginia or North Carolina fought for the Confederacy

I'm not sure of the specifics but I've been trying to find that out. My great aunt told me about it a while ago...I should give her a call.

[Aristus]

46. Yep. You'll never catch me flying the Confederate flag, though.

One can't change what one's ancestors did. I had relatives on both sides of the economic scale; plantation (and slave) owners whose sons fought as officers, and poor white sharecroppers who did the bulk of the fighting as infantrymen.

My ancestor Bright W. Hargrove was among the delegation that signed the secession act for the state of Georgia. His daughter, Fanny, was one of Margaret Mitchell's inspirations for Scarlett O'Hara.

I'm not proud of it, but what can one do?