Pvt Goulder Fields Hopper - Company C, 28th Alabama Infantry - The following ancestors moved with Longstreet to Georgia but were not engaged at Chickamauga
Pvt David Daly Ford, Company K, 18th Georgia Infantry - GGG Grandfather (wounded and captured @ Cold Harbor)
Pvt John G. Ford, Company K, 18th Georgia Infantry - GGG Grand-uncle (captured @ Knoxville)
Tim Newman
Tim, my Great-grandfather, Thomas M. Gasaway (TMG), 16th Ga. Inf., was in the same brigade (Wofford's) as your ancestor. Not only was Wofford's brigade only involved in after battle action at Chickamauga, TMG had been captured at Gettysburg and was languishing in prison at Fort Delaware. I only mention this because the battlefield of Chickamauga was in TMG's backyard. At the time of the battle, his wife, Amelia, nee Bird, was about eight months pregnant and taking care of their two young children while troops from both sides were moving all around her--both before and after the battle. My branch of the family has no oral history of what she went through, or where exactly she resided, but from what evidence we do have it seems likely that it was somewhere between Pea Vine Church and Cooper's/Frick's Gap. I've focused on Bird's Mill, upstream from Lee & Gordon's, since it seems likely to be connected in some way to my Bird ancestors. I'm still researching what happened at these locations, but as many of you know, Thomas's Corp was centered around Bird's Mill and nearby Pond Spring in the days leading up to the battle.
TMG was born in Ringgold, GA, in 1840 and enlisted into the 23rd Ga. Inf. from Walker County in Aug. of 1861. He was later transferred (actually traded for Pvt. M. Bennett) to the 16th Ga. Inf. in early 1862. He had married Amelia Bird shortly before the war and had an infant daughter some time around the time of his enlistment. Amelia Bird's parents are buried in Pea Vine Cemetery. TMG was wounded and captured at Crampton's Gap, paroled and then given a furlough. He evidently went home to convalesce during this time, since his second daughter was born in late October of 1863. So he had been in the area just a few months before the battle. There is no record between that of his furlough and being absent and that of when he was captured at Gettysburg (so we don't know if he was present with the 16th at Chancellorsville and Salem Church or not). After the war, in the census of 1870, TMG and his family were enumerated and listed as residing at Frick's Gap Post Office. Amelia had died and TMG married her sister, Mary Bird, who is my great-grandmother. Below is a post-war photo of her.
Shortly after the census was taken, TMG moved his family to Dardanelle, Arkansas. Mary's brother, John Bird, and possibly another brother, may have made the journey with them; Mary and John are both buried in the Petit Jean Community Cemetery in Conway Co., AR. John had been around eleven years old and Mary about 18 at the time of the battle. I can only imagine what my Bird ancestors and relatives experienced on the homefront--before during and after the battle.
Charles Henry Boatman, my Great-great-grandfather, of the 8th Arkansas, Liddell's/Govan's brigade of Liddell's division of Walker's Reserve Corp, did participate in the battle and later fought at Ringgold Gap. His grand-daughter married TMG and Mary's youngest son, so I have often wondered if he had any contact with the Birds while he was in the area.
Bringing the