Reply #17: Yes, several, and so did my husband [View All]

[csziggy]

None of my father's side of the family from the north had soldiers in the Civil War, but most of the men of the appropriate ages on Mom's side (from Alabama) were soldiers for the Confederate Army. Her father's grandfather on his father's side get married, enlisted, and died six weeks after enlisting, leaving his pregnant wife alone to have her son. He was in a Union prisoner of war camp in Charleston, Tennessee, and is buried there in an unmarked grave.

Grandfather's grandfather on his mother's side enlisted along with three of his brothers - he got his arm shot off "accidentally" according to the CSA records. When he came home with one arm, he learned to run his farm by himself. On Mom's mother's side, her mother's grandfather enlisted, was captured and helped in the camp's hospital. He became interested in medicine and learned enough that he was licensed as a doctor by the first licensing board in his part of Alabama - we have no records of him going to any college or medical school, but apparently he was a very good doctor.

His father provided goods to the Confederates and had to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States after the war.

My grandmother's mother's father did not enlist - he moved to Arkansas and died during the war. He was a doctor and he did provide goods for the Confederacy, so he may have participated in caring for soldiers at a camp that was set up in the county where he lived. He and one or two of his children died from disease, not from war injuries.


My husband's side had mostly Union soldiers but also some from Kentucky on the Confederate side. One of his relatives (not sure of the exact relationship) was killed at Chickmauga - since that was in Alabama, he could have been killed by one of my ancestors, though I have not researched which units fought there. Oddly enough, few of the Union records are available, mostly just pension records - barely enough to verify they are the right person. One of his ancestors we know was in the Union Army, but I have not been able to find him - I found eight or nine guys with the same name, but none of them are him.

I just got finished getting copies of their records from Footnote.com and am just starting to look up their companies and regiments to find out what their service would have covered. Since I am not into military history, it takes a lot of dedication for me to stick with reading the history, especially for the Confederates, since so much of their military history is written by people who want to glorify that past. :puke:

While I was brought up knowing that my Mom's relatives fought, there was more emphasis on what it cost the families in terms of men lost, lives wasted and how pointless it was.