Military Monday: My Civil War Ancestors

At left:  Jacob Shelton, my great-great-great-grandfather, Confederate
At right, Joseph William Wolfe, my great-great-grandfather, Union

This is a post for Bill West's Fourth Annual American Civil War Genealogy Blog Challenge.  Bill asks:

Did you have ancestors in America during the Civil War? If so, where were they and what were their circumstances? How did the Civil War affect them and their families? Did the men enlist and did they perish in battle or die of illness?  On which side did they fight, or did you have relatives fighting on BOTH sides?

He asks some other questions as well, but these are the ones that are pertinent to me.

Jacob Shelton (1822-ABT 1974) is my great-great-great-grandfather on my mother's side.  He was a private in Company B of the 6th Regiment, Louisiana Cavalry. This unit was assembled in January, 1864, and saw light action in Louisiana. Later it operated a courier-line between Camden, Arkansas and Alexandria, Louisiana. According to Civil War Prisoner of War records, Jacob surrendered to the Union in New Orleans on May 26, 1865. He was paroled in Natchitoches, Louisiana, on June 13, 1865. This is the only record of his service; he is not on any muster roll, and an application for a pension was never made.

Joseph William Wolfe (1845-1918), is my great-great-grandfather, also on my mother's side.  On September 2, 1861, Joseph enlisted as a private with Company D of the 79th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, which saw quite a bit of action in the Civil War. He rose to the rank of corporal and served through July 12, 1865. Apparently he eventually applied for a pension in December 1868 as 1883 pension rolls for Washington County show him receiving $4 a month.

My maternal great-great-great-grandmother, Leah Pickering (or Pickens) Barton Spikes (1835-1903), was a Civil War widow before she married my great-great-great grandfather Levi Lewis Spikes (1805-1881) in 1865.

Somewhere in the early 1850s, Leah married George Washington "G. W." Barton (1826-1864), a native of Alabama.  They moved to Winn Parish, Louisiana, and had three sons.  G.W. fought for the Confederacy in the Battle of Mansfield, Louisiana, on April 8, and was wounded there. According to his great-great-grandson Tom Barton, G. W. "survived that.  His unit moved on to fight in the Battle of Yellow Bayou (near Simmesport), where he died of pneumonia. My father was able to find out that virtually all of the dead were buried in a mass grave, so there is no marker."

© Amanda Pape - 2014 - click here to e-mail me.