Authors: Rita Mae Brown
“I’m glad you talked to me.”
“I am, too.” Geneva kissed her. “Go find your mother, and I’ll be down in a minute. I just want to put these things away.”
“Mahmaw, one more question.”
“What?”
“It was so long ago, the war. What do you think of it now?”
Geneva turned from the window. “I think that David flung his pebble at Goliath and missed.”
Laura smiled softly, then she carefully opened the door and left the room.
Geneva returned to the window. So many emotions stirred within her. If she closed her eyes, she could hear artillery fire. She could see Gallant’s fine head. He lived through the war and died at age twenty-seven. She’d loved him, too. And Nash. His life was a spark caught up in the howling flame of war. Who is to say what he would have given to the world if he’d lived? She did not believe in lost loves or lost causes. The rest of the South could wrap themselves in their imagined chivalry, but it was over. The dead numbered in the hundreds of thousands. What started out as a classic war became something new, something ugly, something that twisted everyone. No one was safe at the end. We all live in the dark shadow of Sherman, she thought.
Geneva could hear the laughter of other lifetimes, and like forgotten sunlight, it still warmed her soul. The love of her husband, her children, her neighbors, and her friends were her lifeline. She knew she had not achieved the transcendent love, the purity her mother had reached. She didn’t have the tender forgiveness of Sin-Sin. She’d seen too much perhaps.
“Mother,” Geneva whispered, as she listened to the water in the fountains. “I just don’t believe as you did. I wish I could, but I don’t have much use for the human race. I love a few people, and that’s all. I don’t have your wide embrace, your high heart. There are other wars out there, Mother. They’ll be worse. We haven’t learned a thing!” She sighed. “May God have mercy upon us; we have none for one another.”
On April 3, 1865, most records of the Confederacy were destroyed in a fire in Richmond. Enlistment scrolls burned, making the task of counting soldiers accurately for a historian or this novelist difficult at best.
The county of Albemarle and the city of Charlottesville do not have paid historians or archivists on their roster of city and county employees. This is not a criticism. I wonder if any county has an archivist. While it saves on our budget, it plays havoc with our legacy, our past. We have in our county bits and pieces of information moldering in boxes, stashed in back rooms and who knows where else. Our elected officials are generally too concerned about their political futures to be overly worried about our collective past. I have tried to reconstruct enlistment figures from Albemarle County with the frustrating knowledge that there are probably treasures down at our courthouse or over in old Lane High School about which I know nothing. Does anybody know?
Claudia Garthwaite and I have been able to piece together the following information. Much of this was taken from R. A. Brock’s valuable summary of enlistments. This gentleman was secretary of the Virginia Historical Society and the figures were published in 1884 in the
Special Virginia Edition
of
Hardesty’s Encyclopedia
. Supplemental lists are from what records
remain in the office of the clerk of the circuit court of Albemarle County.
Another difficulty with enlistment figures is that sometimes muster rolls fell into the hands of the Federals. It is entirely possible that some of our papers are languishing in New York, Maine, or where have you.
Fearing Federal soldiers at the war’s end, we also destroyed many of our own records. The aftermath of the war was in many ways worse than the war itself, and people’s concern for their safety had basis in fact.
This is what we have been able to piece together. The total number of enlisted for which there is record from Albemarle County is 2,189. Those killed during the war numbered 278. We know there were more killed, but sometimes the bodies could not be found.
In the 1860 census, there were 26,625 residents of Albemarle County—12,103 were white and 14,622 were black. Among the black residents, 606 were free.
Roughly half of the 12,103 whites were female. So if we had a male population of 6,050 men, one can quickly see that 2,189 in service is one-third of the male population. Those men not in service were either children or the elderly. In other words, Albemarle County was totally mobilized.
At the University of Virginia, 515 men in attendance out of a student body of 630 immediately joined the service in 1861. By the war’s end the University of Virginia gave up 503 dead on the field of battle. Their names are inscribed on a plaque on the south side of the rotunda. Three of these dead were under 16 years of age. They are not listed here since most of the students were not Albemarle residents.
You will not find the name of either my paternal or maternal great-grandfather on this list. Miraculously, they both survived.
This is but one list from one county in central Virginia. Imagine if we compiled a list from every county, from every state. It would be the volumes of dead, mute testimony that once they lived, they were young, they were filled with hope and high spirits.
I do not believe you can read this list without being moved by it. Perhaps you will find a list for your own county and find the names of your people. What I pray for is that neither you nor I, wherever we live, will have to read a list like this in the future.
COMPANY A, NINETEENTH VIRGINIA INFANTRY, MONTICELLO GUARD
Collier, James, killed at Seven Pines
Johnson, W.A., killed at Manassas, August 30, 1862
Wingfield, R.F., killed near Richmond, July 30, 1862
Christian, John J.
Jones, Lucian S., killed at Gettysburg
COMPANYE, NINTEENTH VIRGINIA INFANTRY
Goss, W.W., lieutenant; promoted captain; killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Mooney, Madison, accidentally shot near Richmond; died August 1, 1864
Sandridge, J.J., color bearer; wounded June 27, 1862, at
Seven Pines; killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Pritchett, William R.
Salmon, James, killed at Hatchers Run, March 1865
Gilvert, Robert M., died at Cold Harbor
Butler, Jacob W.
Garden, William B.
Carpenter, John F., killed at Gettysburg
Eastin, Henry
Easten, Granvills
Hall, Henry J.
Johnson, W.W.
Leake, John W., mortally wounded in battle at Seven Pines, June 1, 1862; died from wounds
LeTellier, William B., wounded, captured, and died in hospital, April 26, 1862
Munday, Thomas Walker, wounded and killed in 1863
Munday, Henry B.
Norvell, Joseph B., captured and killed at Gettysburg
Thomas, Tazewell S.
Thomas, Jerry
Taylor, John R., killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Wood, William
*Zibinia, Antonia, killed at second Manassas
COMPANY E, FORTY-SIXTH VIRGINIA INFANTRY, WISE’S BRIGADE
Patterson, D.N., killed at Petersburg Moon, Scarlar, killed at Petersburg, June 15, 1864
COMPANY I, FORTY-SIXTH VIRGINIA INFANTRY, WISE’S BRIGADE
Harris, James O.
Jones, Robert M., wounded at Petersburg, February 5, 1865; died March 1, 1865
Jones, W.H., wounded at Petersburg, November 6, 1862
Reeves, Tucker, wounded at Petersburg, June 17, 1864; killed April 1, 1865, at Five Forks
Shackleford, William, killed at Petersburg, June 17, 1864
COMPANY II, FIFTY-SIXTH VIRGINIA INFANTRY
Ballard, William
Michie, Orion
Maupin, David G., wounded at Gaines Mills; killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Ballard, Joseph M.
Ballard, William G., killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Beddows, Nash
Bellew, John R., died March 1864
Brown, Thomas
Dunn, Thomas W., killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Dunn, George M., died September 1864
Estes, Robert, killed 1863 at Gettysburg
Gibson, Henry T., killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Herring, George
Murry, James
McAllister, ——, killed 1863 at Gettysburg
Maupin, Burnett C., killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Maupin, Carson B., killed 1863 at Gettysburg
Rhodes, Franklin, killed 1862 at Malvern Hill
Sandridge, George W., killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Sandridge, William
COMPANY H, FIFTY-SEVENTH VIRGINIA INFANTRY
Magruder, John B., captain, killed 1863 at Gettysburg
Rogers, R. Lewis, killed 1864
Ward, J.B., orderly sergeant, died February 1862
Biggins, James A., killed 1862 at Malvern Hill
Ward. J.B., died 1862
Bragg, H.R.
Black, J.T.
Dunn, Leroy E., killed 1862 at Malvern Hill
Eads, James, died 1864
Eddins, Theodore T.
Eddins, Charles C.
Morris, James B., died 1863
Morris, John W., died 1863
Morris, A.J., killed 1862 at Malvern Hill
Mayo, W.B., killed 1862 at Malvern Hill
Marshall, Wesley B., died 1863
Norris, John W., died in Richmond, March 1863
Powell, Edward, captured at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863; held at Point Lookout; died 1865
Shiflett, O.M., color bearer, died 1863
COMPANY K, SECOND VIRGINIA CAVALRY
Anderson, M.L., killed near Woodstock, October 8, 1864
Baxter, Thornton, killed 1864 near Trevilian Depot
Carr, James, killed 1864 at Fort Kernan
Good, Albert H., wounded at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863; died
August 3, 1863
Goodwin, F.C., killed 1865 at Appomattox
Goodwin, William W., wounded at Cold Harbor, June 3, 1864; died next day
Leslie, J.O., wounded 1862 in the valley of Virginia; killed 1864 at Front Royal
Magruder, James, killed 1864 at Meadow Bridge
Marshall, William, killed 1862 in the valley of Virginia
Minor, William B.
Nelson, Frank, killed 1864 at Fort Kernan
Newman, Thomas, killed 1863 in Loudon county
Rothwell, J.W.
Sneed, Horace A.
Tebbs, W.B., killed 1862 near Richmond
White, B.T.
Boston, Reuben
Clark, Christopher
Garth, Hugh
Geiger, George H., killed at Gettysburg
Harris, William
Jacobs, James
Lasley, John, killed at Front Royal, September 1865
Michie, Octavius
Robertson, Constantine
Reynolds, Chesney
COMPANY F, TENTH VIRGINIA CAVALRY
Edge, Benjamin
Edge, John E., killed at Reams Station, August 24, 1864
Elson, John, killed at Reams Station, August 24, 1864
Giles, Joseph H., killed at Stony Creek, September 1864
Hopkins, John, killed at Reams Station, August 24, 1864
Wallace, George P.
Walcott, Gideon, killed at Brandy Station, June 9, 1863
COMPANY I, SEVENTH VIRGINIA INFANTRY
Brown, Basil G.
Brown, William A., wounded at Williamsburg, May 5, 1862; died May 8, 1862
Walters, W.P., killed at Williamsburg, May 5, 1862
Fretwell, B.
Ambroselli, John B., killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Ballard, C, killed at Dinwiddie, March 31, 1865
Ballard, Marion, killed at Fraziers Farm, June 30, 1862
Bowen, F.A., killed at Williamsburg, May 5, 1862
Brown, W.G.
Clark, I.L., captured at Five Forks, April 1, 1865; held at
Point Lookout; died 1865
Clark, Tobias, captured at Five Forks, April 1, 1865; held at
Point Lookout; died 1865
Cox, N., captured at Five Forks, April 1, 1865; held at Point
Lookout, died 1865
Dore, David
Fielding, B.F., killed at Bull Run, July 18, 1861
Gardner, Elzie
Good, A.H.
Herring, W.H., killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Herndon, W.G., captured at Five Forks, April 1, 1865; held at Point Lookout; died 1865
Keyton, W.L.
Lane, J.M.
Lowery, George
COMPANY K, NINETEENTH VIRGINIA INFANTRY
Black, Robert, wounded 1865 at Howlett House; died June 12, 1867
Dollins, Alexander M., died August 25, 1861
Dollins, John A., died February 1862
Dollins, William R., died October 7, 1861
Grimstead, James H., first lieutenant; wounded at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863; died July 7, 1863
Humphries, William, died August 1, 1861
Martin, Joseph N., died March 4, 1863
Martin, Joel A.
Robertson, A.J., second lieutenant; wounded at Cold Harbor; killed at Gaines Mills
Troter, Lewis, killed 1862 at Boonesboro
Woods, John J., wounded and captured at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863; died July 20, 1863
Woods, John J., corporal; wounded at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863; died July 16, 1863
Woodson, James, killed 1862 at Boonesboro
Woodson, James Garland, first lieutenant; promoted captain and major; wounded at Sharpsburg and Gettysburg; killed at Cold Harbor, June 3, 1864
Wolf, George, killed 1862 at Boonesboro
Wolf, William, killed 1862 at Boonesboro
Abell, M.L., killed 1864 at Cold Harbor
Harris, William
Hays, Thomas
Johnson, James
McSparran, Robert M.
Moyer, Jacob
Scott, James M.
Scott, ——
Shepherd, Robert
Shepherd, William B.
Taylor, Randall
Maupin, J.T.
Maupin, C.B., killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Marshall, T.A.
Sandridge, R., captured at Five Forks, April 1, 1865; held at Point Lookout; died 1865
Toombs, William L., killed at Manassas, July 11, 1861
Taylor, J.W.
Thurston, George, fell from team and killed, 1863
Walton, J.W.
Wood, W.T., killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Woods, W.W., wounded at second Manassas, August 27, 1862; died in Albemarle County, September, 1862
Wood, William, wounded at second Manassas; killed at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863
Wyant, J.A., killed at Dinwiddie, March 31, 1865