A Case History on Identifying a Confederate Soldier in My Family

Robtweb1

2nd Lieutenant
Retired Moderator
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Apr 20, 2011
Location
Grand Junction, TN
I would like to share an experience I had identifying a specific person in a Tennessee Cavalry unit.

My father's family came to Hardeman County, TN about 1840. My great-great-grandfather's first wife died and he remarried. Both had a number of children. Through family research I found my great-grandfather to be James R. Webb. Now the vast majority of Civil War soldiers are listed only by their first two initials and last name. I located a J. R. Webb in Company E of the 7th Tennessee Cavalry, which was from the Bolivar area of Hardeman county. On further comparison of census records cemetery records, and the roster of that company, I found all of my great-great-grandfather's adult sons and, in addition, his stepsons. This gave enough evidence that the J. R. Webb in the 7th Cavalry was indeed my great-grandfather, James R. Webb.

I hope this is of some help to people new to this.
 
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You bring up a good point about a large number of Confederate soldiers being listed in the service records by their initials instead of their first and middle names. If you fail to take this into consideration, it can throw a record search off and lead to confusion. For example, Thomas Ruffin Lamm of the 43rd NC Infantry was listed as Thomas R. Lamm and T. R. Lamm in the service records on Fold3. His service history was under T. R. Lamm and Thomas R. Lamm was just an index card. Looking for Thomas Lamm, I assumed for a while that his records didn't exist or that he had actually never seen service at first glance.
 
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