Seeking info Robert Charles Johnson (1826-1894)

Bruce Vail

Captain
Joined
Jul 8, 2015
Can anybody help with some info on the war record of Robert Charles Johnson (1826-1894) of Sampson County, North Carolina?

Here is a foto image of his gravestone:

21183612_129807845919.jpg
 
Charles Robert Johnson married to Mary Ward pops up quite a few times on Family Search (a lot of times both are listed on their children's death certificates), so you might want to look for him there.


???

Charles Robert or Robert Charles?
 
Robert Charles, as it says on the Fold 3 file. My creeping dyslexia is beginning to gallop.

I think this is a match, although there are some red flags. A biographical sketch published in the 1940s states that he never served in the military because of a crippled arm. The PO Box in Lillington is mysterious too, as Johnson was farming in Sampson County in 1861-62. There could hardly be a more common name than Robert Johnson, so I will continue to look for more conculsive evidence.
 
Can anybody help with some info on the war record of Robert Charles Johnson (1826-1894) of Sampson County, North Carolina?
Have you found him in the 1860 census? Where was he living in at that time? That's a big part of confirming if the record Gary Morgan found is in fact your ancestor.

The Robert C. Johnson that Gary found, enlisted in the confederate army 16 May 1862 at Wilmington. That's quite a distance from Sampson County. But Family Search says that the 1st Battalion North Carolina heavy artillery, company B was made up of men "principally from New Hanover County (119 men), Duplin County (88 men), and Sampson County (21 men)." So it does seem very possible it's the same guy. An undated form in this soldier's file says he was listed on the Role of Honor and that he was 34 years old. Which if he was born in 1826 would match up for his age at the start of the war. If this is your guy, you would definitely want to look up that Role of Honor listing. There may be a listed reason for him being included.

He appears to have been ill a few time. There are several hospital forms in his file. In June and July of 1862 he was listed as at the Confederate hospital in Wilmington. I can't read the handwriting to tell what the disease was. It looks like febrile on several of the forms, so some type of fever. He was hospitalized again the following March apparently at the same hospital (but the post office is listed as Lillington, N.C.).

Several of the forms list him as part of "Taylor's artillery." NPS says that company B of the 1st Bat. served in North Carolina and surrendered with the Army of Tennessee as infantry.

But since Robert Johnson such a common name, I would urge caution. See if you can confirm some things.

Since your Robert Johnson died in 1894 it makes it less likely that he received a pension (the states that had been part of the confederacy funded pensions for the former soldiers who lived in their state — regardless of which state the men had served in during the war). Check the state where he lived circa 1890 and confirm when they started a pension program. Pension records are usually the only records that included family information. And they are a gold mine if you can get them.
 
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