My family & The Civil War

Close to 20 years ago, I became curious about whether our family had any involvement in the Civil War. I figured that most families probably had some relative involved in it since hundreds of thousands of men died during that great conflict and many more survived it, so I poured through letters for clues and found enough to file some documents with the National Archives and was rewarded with some very interesting stuff. On my maternal grandmother's side, my great-great grandfather's two older brothers served with the 26th Massachusetts Infantry, one serving but a year, but the other serving all four years of the war and seeing some pretty heavy action. I've been to some of the battlefields in Virginia where he was involved in battle and it was pretty humbling standing in the same vicinity as my ancestor would have stood and fought. The family wholesale moved to Oregon after the eldest brother ended up doing well there and becoming a banker and prominent businessman. Only my great-great grandfather and grandmother stayed back in Massachusetts, because she was an Irish immigrant who did not wish to leave her people and move West, and from what I am given to understand, she wore the pants in the family, so to speak. These two New England boys were sent to the hot, steamy bayous of Louisiana to serve with Generals Benjamin Butler and Nathaniel Banks. The younger brother ended up going home after a year but the elder continued on and would end up fighting with General Philip Sheridan in the bloody Shenandoah Valley Campaign in 1864, where I visited two of the battlefields on which my ancestor fought, Cedar Creek and Fisher's Hill.

On my maternal grandfather's side, I have a Confederate ancestor who fought in the 60th Alabama Regiment. Via the Alabama State Archives, I was able to obtain copies of his muster rolls that told where he was and when, and his story was probably the most interesting of all. I found out about him both through mention of him in an old family letter as well as my mother's cousin sending along two pieces of Confederate currency, pictured above, as well as a roster of the 60th Alabama with his name check marked on it. He started out in the First Battalion, Hilliard's Alabama Legion, and from that was formed both the 59th and 60th Alabama Regiments. He went with the 60th because the commander of Company F, his particular company, was Captain Daniel Troy, and his family was apparently close to the Troy family. This Confederate ancestor was captured at a place called Strawberry Plain, TN on June 21st, 1863, but he must have been paroled or exchanged fairly quickly, because on the next muster roll, he is listed as present but sick. Then he is listed as being admitted to C.S.A. General Hospital in Farmville, Virginia with a gunshot wound to the thigh on April 2, 1865, a week before the surrender at Appomattox. My guess is that he was probably in the trenches in Petersburg, very close to Farmville. Shortly thereafter, he is listed as being paroled as a Prisoner of War by an officer of the 36th Massachusetts Regiment, so perhaps he was captured after being wounded. Who knows. But he certainly had a colorful and interesting Civil War experience. However, he died in 1880 before reaching his 40th birthday, and my speculation is that perhaps he was weakened by his years fighting the war. It's pretty neat having these old pieces of Confederate currency that have survived 150 years of being passed down through family. I do not know if they are at all worth anything, probably not much more than the paper they are printed on, but it's still amazing to have these old relics just the same.