Military Monday - Vicksburg, Gettysburg and others

150 years ago today, the battle of Gettysburg began and the siege of Vicksburg was in progress.  This seemed like a good time to document my ancestral connections to those and other Civil War battles.

Vicksburg - Pvt Washington W. B. Horne, 57th GA Infantry was wounded during the siege of Vicksburg, losing an arm, and was part of the army that surrendered there on 4 July 1863.  He was paroled and returned to his home in Crawford County, GA.  His brother-in-law James W. Morris served in the same unit and was killed in 1862.  His uncles Thomas and Jeremiah Lewis served in the 45th GA infantry and were killed in 1862 and 1863 respectively. 

Gettysburg - Pvt Moses Thomas Wade served in the 12th NC Infantry at Gettysburg, where he was wounded.  As the army retreated back toward Virginia, he and many others of the wounded were left behind and captured at Williamsport, MD on 14 July 1863.  After a year at the Point Lookout prison camp, he spent the remainder of the war at the Elmyra prison camp in New York. 


Petersburg - Pvt George Washington Hendricks, served in the 64th GA Infantry, company A.  He was listed as absent without leave a few months after the battle.  This was presumably not out of lack of enthusiasm for the cause, since he later named his youngest son John Robert E. Lee Hendricks.

Petersburg - James Gooch, 64th GA Infantry, Company K.  He was captured in July 1864, listed as "a deserter from the enemy."  As such, he took the loyalty oath (to the Union) and was sent to Philadelphia.  A James M. Gooch enlisted in the 11th GA Cavalry in the fall of that year, but it has not been determined if it was the same man or not.  Some family records indicate that he had returned to GA and rejoined the army but this is not verified.

Petersburg and Chancellorsville - Cpl Thomas Franklin Mathews served in the 6th GA Infantry.  He was captured in NC on 8 March 1865 and sent to Pt Lookout MD, where he was released on 29 June 1865.