A Perplexing Civil War Soap Opera?

[donna]

Great find. Thanks for posting.

 

[TinCan]

excellent post, a very interesting read.

 

[ErnieMac]

On Ancestry.com I found an entry for John W. Myers of the S.C. Marines captured at Peen's Bridge on February 11, 1865, imprisoned at Cape Lookout and released on May 2, 1865 by order of the Secretary of War dated May 1, 1865. A little further research shows an action at Penn's Bridge on February 11, 1865 which resulted in the capture of two soldiers of the 42nd Georgia Infantry as well. As the 42nd Georgia was part of the Army of Tennessee I assume that Penn's Bridge was a skirmish in Sherman's March through the Carolinas. Haven't been able to find anything else.

 

[TerryB]

I believe that our man is indeed the SC Marine.

 

[TerryB]

I believe the above expense account is actually for Lt. John W. Myers of the 20th Texas Cavalry, not this man. Myers resigned his commission in April 1864. There was a J.W. Johnson of the Quartermaster Corps in Texas and parts of the Indian Territory, so it may be that Lt. Myers did some service in May 1864 after his resignation went into effect. There is no evidence that the John W. Myers of this thread ever held a commission.

 

[TerryB]

Lt. John Wade Myers letter of resignation; the handwriting doesn't match up with the expense report, so I guess I struck out on this one. [rabbit trail; not him]

 

[TerryB]

I get the impression that John was very young and had probably enlisted without telling his parents. He may have felt smothered by his mother's tendency to dote on him. His only sibling seems to have been a much younger brother, "little Peter."

 

[BrassVols]

Great stuff Terry. Appreciate what you bring here!

 

[TerryB]

Thanks to AndyHall for finding this pension app;

 

[TerryB]

From his pension app, he was wounded twice, once while trying to escape. Ya gotta love this kid.

 

[TerryB]

This says "Peer's Bridge" was where he was captured.

 

[TerryB]

His grave? [definitely]

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/f...rel=in&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=59137049&df=all&

 

[TerryB]

The 1860 census clears up a mystery but opens up another one. His "mother" Elizabeth was 26 and his father Joseph was 42. His age is given as 12, but the 1910 census says he was born in 1847. His pension gives his DOB as 1846. Say he was 12; that means Elizabeth would still be too young to be his real mother. That seems to explain a passage in the first letter in which she refers to "your dear, departed mother," while referring to herself as his mother numerous times. So she was [definitely] his step-mother. From the tone of her letters, she sounds like she had a crush on him. Could explain why Dad, a New Yorker, opted to stay in Savannah in 1865. Maybe this thread should replace the word "touching" with "disturbing?"

At least I feel confident that she was his step-mother, and her being a Northerner also explains her lack of any Confederate sympathies expressed in the letters. I couldn't believe she could have a neutral tone unless she was either foreign-born or from the North.

 

[TerryB]

That they moved around a lot can be explained by the father being a Presbyterian minister. And since John was born in Tennessee and grew up in the South, that explains his Confederate stand.

 

[TerryB]

Joseph and Elizabeth (nee Hopkins) married in Northampton, Mass, on 22 Nov, 1859. It was his second marriage, her first. He was 42, she was 25. The first wife, Ellen, was still alive in 1850. She must have died in the 1850s. Peter, born in Jan 1861, was probably their first child.
[Ellen died in 1854.]
One of the things I like about this story is how easy it would be to make it into a soap opera. A family who no doubt had most of their kin fighting for the North; then here's this Black Sheep Rebel who wants to be a sailor, and even becomes a sea captain sometime after the war. And then there's that twenty-something step-mom who can't stop thinking about him. Hmmmm.

Then John goes on to become a gun-runner to Cuba in the year leading up to the Spanish-American War. Great stuff!

 

[TerryB]

Ellen, John's real mother died in 1854;

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/f...Sst=11&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=13386784&df=all&

 

[TerryB]

John's wife, Florida "Florence" died in 1917.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=59136962

 

[TerryB]

Add this to the soap opera;

Captain Myers got the bureaucratic run-around re his pension app. First, an error from the War Dept records seemed to show he took the oath on March 2, 1865, clearly a typo. Tons of evidence showed the true date was May 2, after both Lee and Johnston had surrendered. Then the pension board had the gall to say he had not established proof of residency in the state prior to 1899. Eventually, he got his pension.

One record has him captured at Orangeburg, SC, while another states he was on furlough when captured at Peer's Bridge, North Carolina, sent to New Bern, then to Point Lookout, arriving there on April 3.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Whoa and wow- what a soap opera, as you say! Kudos for gluing it together SO awfully well, boy, it transpires it was worth the effort to dig around in this one! She is pretty darn creepy. If it seems obvious to us at a distance of 150 years and only through letters, that this woman was inappropriate on the subject of her stepson, you'd have to imagine it was something gossiped over at the time because she apparently did not attempt to hide her feelings. What a very odd female.

That poor family, father and son. Some female enters the family, probably helps blow it up more than ' just ' having them on opposite sides in the way would have. Boy, with all the abysmal programming out there, plain, old bad TV and movies, writers really need to go look at some REAL stories,there's the inspiration. Gee whiz.

Thanks for this, very cool.

 

[TerryB]

Whoa and wow- what a soap opera, as you say! Kudos for gluing it together SO awfully well, boy, it transpires it was worth the effort to dig around in this one! She is pretty darn creepy. If it seems obvious to us at a distance of 150 years and only through letters, that this woman was inappropriate on the subject of her stepson, you'd have to imagine it was something gossiped over at the time because she apparently did not attempt to hide her feelings. What a very odd female.

That poor family, father and son. Some female enters the family, probably helps blow it up more than ' just ' having them on opposite sides in the way would have. Boy, with all the abysmal programming out there, plain, old bad TV and movies, writers really need to go look at some REAL stories,there's the inspiration. Gee whiz.

Thanks for this, very cool.

And I make Johnny either 16 or 17 when he enlisted in 1862. Back then he'd be old enough to be called a man, but now...?