In the American Civil War, 1861-65, more properly ‘The War for Southern Independence,” my ancestors were all Southern patriots. Three of my great-grandfathers served in the Confederate Army: Francis DeKalb Veal, Lemuel Dallas Searcy, and Elbert Theophilus Norton. The fourth, Albert Lee Ray, was too young for the military. However, he had two older brothers who served, Stephen Bird Ray and James Benson Ray. (The former served with the colorful Partizan Rangers of the Thirteenth Alabama and the later was killed in the defense of Atlanta, riding with General Joe Wheeler’s Cavalry.) In addition, two of my great-great-grandfathers served in the Confederate Army; Worthy Jordan Grubbs, and Sherod Jackson Belcher.
Francis DeKalb Veal (1836-1899) was born on his father’s farm in DeKalb County, Georgia, virtually in the shadow of Stone Mountain near Atlanta, which is today a memorial to those who served in the Confederate Army. There were many Veals in DeKalb County, all related and all farmers. In fact, the Veals were influential in naming the County for “the Baron de Kalb,” who died following the Battle of Camden, 1780, in the arms of a cousin. Colonel Edward Veal. Francis’ father, William, owned and operated a successful farm, but he used free labor and he owned no slaves. He was not a cotton planter.
In 1856 Francis married the daughter of a prosperous planter of Barbour County, Alabama, Hephzibah Ann Grubbs. We will consider her father. Worthy Jordan Grubbs, below. Francis, who was called ‘T.D.” or sometimes ‘Frank”, and “Hepsey”, moved to Alabama, where her dowry of a substantial tract of land lay and where she would eventually inherit an even larger holding. Two daughters were born to them before the Civil War broke out: Carrie and Emma.
On 24 February, 1862, Frank enlisted in the First Regiment of Alabama Infantry[1] and was assigned to F Company. He reported for duty in Mobile where the Regiment was regrouping after an unsuccessful defense of Pensacola. The First Alabama had been commanded by Col. Henry D. Clayton (U.S. Senator after the War and a trusted advisor of President Wilson), but Clayton was transferred and the Regiment was taken over by Col. Isaiah G. W. Steadman (a graduate of the Citadel in S.C. and a medical doctor).
The entire Regiment was loaded on rail cars and moved northwards to Corinth, Mississippi, and thence to Memphis, Tennessee, where they arrived on March 12,1862. They were then transported via steamer, up the Mississippi, to Island No. 10, near New Madrid. (That Island no longer exists, it vanished years later when the River flooded and changed its course.) The boat trip was very unpleasant. The vessel was leaky and the weather was cold. Mumps and measles were rampant in the ranks.
The defense of Island No. 10 was crucial to the Confederate defense of the Mississippi “Delta” region, Memphis and south, and to prevent the division of the South, east and west. A flotilla of Union gunboats, mostly ironclads, assaulted the Island again and attempting to gain passage. The Island was held through days of heavy bombardment and the Confederate artillery continued to prevent the movement of Union forces down river. The First Alabama’s artillery was some of the best and they held fast. One wrote home, “My exposure here in mud and water, sleeping on cornstalks, etc., upset me for a time...” However, he reported that he had adjusted to the living conditions and the incessant bombardments. The Confederates were reported to have shown incredible bravado, sometimes parading about, singing, shouting, and playing field music as shells burst all around them. Island No. 10 was finally overwhelmed and overrun by the Northern Army on April 8, 1862. F.D. was taken prisoner.
‘Tor the captured of Island No. 10 the misery was only beginning. Transports worked throughout April 8 to move the prisoners to New Madrid... The officers were sheltered in homes, but all others remained huddled along the bank, shivering in the rain. On the morning of April 9 and throughout April 10, the captives embarked for Cairo. Arriving there throughout April 11 and 12, they were transferred to railroad cars - the officers in passenger cars and the men in cattle cars. The captives were farmed out to prison camps throughout the North.”[2] F.D. was taken to Camp Randall at Madison, Wisconsin. There, some 140 members of the First Alabama perished from exposure, disease, and malnutrition during the five months before an exchange of prisoners could be effected. In September, 1862, F.D. was exchanged at Vicksburg and rejoined his unit at Port Hudson, Louisiana.
New Orleans had fallen and Vicksburg was under siege. Port Hudson, just north of Baton Rouge, was heavily besieged by Union forces coming up from the south. On July 4, 1863, Vicksburg fell to the invaders and four days later the garrison at Port Hudson had to be surrendered. The First Alabama removed to Meridian, Mississippi, where they regrouped and retrained. In February, 1864, they were ordered to the defense of Mobile, Alabama, but in May they were transferred to northern Georgia and assigned to Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s army. Major Samuel L. Knox replaced Steadman in command.
In May the First Alabama participated in the heroic and successful defense of New Hope Church, a victory which temporarily stalled Sherman’s invasion. On June 27, 1864, they played a major role in the defeat of Sherman’s army at Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia. There were 2000 Union casualties and less than 500 Confederate ones. But, a few days later General Johnston had to abandon the entrenched Confederate positions at Kennesaw Mountain and move further south to avoid exposing his flanks. Later, in July, the First Alabama performed brilliantly in the Battle of Peachtree Creek and in the defense of Atlanta, October 1864. Francis D. Veal found himself defending his father’s own farm. Sherman’s soldiers threw our elderly forebears, William and Mildred, out of their home and they burned the house and bam. What they did not consume of crops and livestock they burned..
William “Wil” and Mildred “Millie” were left destitute and she soon died. We do not know what ever became of Wil. If he is the William Veal buried in Stone Mountain Cemetery, which is by no means certain, he remarried and lived until 1892. Otherwise, the only records we have of William and Mildred are marriage, land, and census ones. William signs his name so is, presumably, literate. Their son, Francis, sold his inheritance of lands in DeKalb and Fulton counties in 1877, which would tend to indicate that his father had died before then.
William and Mildred were quiet, somewhat reclusive, people. Both came from families of educated people but neither seems to have had any formal schooling. They were married by a justice of the peace and there are no records of their being members of any church that was extant in DeKalb County in the mid-nineteenth century. William’s name does not even appear on the rolls of registered voters, so it is highly unlikely that they had any interest in politics or “the great issues” of their times. They were not into cotton production and they owned no slaves. They seem to have managed their own farm and worked their own land with only the use of hired “free” laborers. Theirs’s was a truck farm on which they raised food for the family and some things for market, typical of North Georgia. They would have raised com, beans, peas, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, okra, carrots, and those Georgia staples, watermelons and peaches. They certainly kept chickens for eggs and for flying. Their diet would have been supplemented by fish, venison, rabbit and squirrel for there was still lots of good hunting and fishing in the area. They probably owned a mule for ploughing and a milk cow. They would have owned a couple of horses and a wagon, but probably not a carriage. If their farm was like those of comparable size in the area, they would have kept swine and had a smokehouse in which to cure ham, bacon, and sausage. They may have grown some tobacco for market. William Veal was as close as anyone ever came to being Jefferson’s ideal “yeoman farmer.”
Sherman’s scorched earth policy suddenly brought a total end to all this in the autumn of 1864. The harvest and livestock was devoured or destroyed by his troops and the Veal farm burned to the ground.
After the fall of Atlanta, the First Alabama was transferred to the Tennessee front where they courageously engaged in General Hood’s efforts to gain the initiative in the war and mount an offensive. Heavy casualties were suffered in the Battle of Franklin. The commander of the First Alabama was killed and the regimental colors were lost. The War raged on. What was left of the First Alabama was decimated in the battle for Nashville in December, 1864.
A remnant of the Regiment regrouped in North Carolina and, miraculously, F.D. was still among them. They fought at Averasborough and Bentonville in March, 1865. The First Alabama was disbanded and Francis D. Veal honorably discharged at Greensboro, NC, in April, 1865.
He returned home to Barbour County, Alabama. His third daughter, Willie, had been born shortly after he left for the War and his first son, James David, would be bora within a year of the end of the hostilities. Frank and Hepsie would have two more daughters and another son; Hepsie (“Little Hepsey”), Jessie, and F.D., Jr. 1 am named for their first son, James David Veal, my grandfather.
Lemuel Dallas Searcy (1844-1919) was born on his father’s relatively modest plantation in Henry County, Alabama, near Lawrenceville. He had flaming red hair and a red beard and was called “Dallas”.
At age 17, on March 18, 1862, he enlisted in Company H of the Thirty-seventh Alabama Infantry Regiment. In May, when the Thirty-ninth Alabama Infantry Regiment[3] was organized he was transferred to Company B of that Regiment.
The Thirty-ninth trained in Mississippi and fought in its first major engagement in Murfreesboro and Stones River in Tennessee on December 31st. In Tennessee this Regiment was a part of General Leonidas C. Polk’s corps and of General Jones M. Wither’s division, and General Zachary Deas’ brigade. (Bishop/General Polk was a founder of the University of the South and one of his great-grandsons, Cadwaller “Cad” Polk, was a fraternity brother of mine at the University of Alabama. General Withers was later the mayor of Mobile and the editor of the Mobile Tribune. 1 knew his granddaughter who lived in Greensboro, Alabama, and was a friend of my paternal grandmother. A great-grandson of General Deas was Morris Deas, another fraternity brother of mine and a champion of civil rights in Alabama and the Nation in the last quarter of the 20th century.)
At Chickamauga, September 19-20, 1863,. the Thirty-ninth performed with extraordinary gallantry and young Dallas Searcy was promoted to corporal. The Regiment fought at Missionary Ridge and wintered in Dalton, Georgia. Spring and summer brought the long, slow, painful withdrawal of Confederate forces towards Atlanta. At Kennesaw Mountain Captain Willis Banks was killed (an ancestor of our good friends and parishioners in Eutaw, Alabama). In that battle Lemual Searcy exhibited such leadership qualities that he was promoted to Sergeant, July 1, 1864. The Thirty-ninth Alabama was prominent in the fighting in the battle of Peachtree Creek and in the struggle for Atlanta in July.
The Regiment participated in Hood’s counter-offensive in Tennessee in the winter of 1864 and suffered terrible loses in the battle for Nashville in December. Transferred back to General Johnston’s Army, the unit moved to North Carolina. At Bentonville Sergeant Searcy was wounded and in May he was paroled (honorably discharged) from the General Field Hospital Number 10 in Salisbury, NC.
Dallas returned to Henry County, Alabama, and to his father’s plantation. Immediately after the War he married Margaret Elizabeth Craddock and they had nine children over the next 22 years. One of them was my grandfather, James Thomas Searcy. It is said that Dallas never entirely recovered from his wounds, but we have not been left any information about their exact nature. After Margaret died in 1909 he remarried at age sixty-six. He was seventy-five when he died.
Elbert Theophilus Norton (1842-1912) was born on his father’s plantation, “Pleasant Plains”, in Barbour County, Alabama. This was a relatively modest cotton plantation, similar to the Searcy one in neighboring Henry County. In 1860 it included a dozen slaves. He was one of seventeen children of John and Nancy Norton. Usually he went by “El” or “E.T.”, although in the family he was sometimes called “Theo.”
He enlisted in Company B of the Fifty-fourth Alabama Infantry Regiment on February 13, 1863, in Troy, Alabama.[4] His unit trained and served in the defense of Mississippi in March and April and on 1 May he was promoted to corporal and transferred to Company H. In the autumn Corporal Norton was transferred to the Fifty-seventh Alabama Infantry Regiment which was serving in the defense of Mobile.
In January of 1864 his Regiment was called into service in the Army of Tennessee under General Joseph E. Johnston in time to share in the perils and hardships of the Dalton-Atlanta campaign. Johnston was removed and General Hood of Texas took command of the Army just in time for the battle at Peachtree Creek, July 20, 1864. The Fifty-seventh Alabama suffered severely in that battle, losing nearly half its men. Its strength was too depleted for it to be of much use in the defense of Atlanta. The Fifty- seventh was rebuilt with fresh troops and moved with Hood to Tennessee. Once again the unit was decimated in the Battle of Franklin, but lived on to participate in the unsuccessful defense of Nashville.
In the winter of 1865 the Fifty-seventh Alabama was moved to North Carolina where it fought at Bentonville, again suffering severe loses. It was consolidated with the Twenty-seventh, Thirty-fifth, Forty-ninth, and Fifty-fifth regiments as the War drew to a close. Corporal Norton was paroled (honorably discharged) at Greensboro, NC, in April, 1865.
El returned home to help work “Pleasant Plains” plantation, there being an obvious labor shortage. On 28 February, 1872, at thirty years of age, he married the widow Knowles, i.e. Nancy Ann Knowles, nee Herring. Their first child, Mary Victoria, was my grandmother.
Nancy Ann’s mother, Martha Sue Herring, nee Warren, was the daughter of one of Barbour County’s wealthiest planters, Thomas Warren. He owned thousands of acres and scores of slaves. Nancy Ann’s marriage to El Norton represented a union of two of the county’s most prominent families. What ever became of their wealth?
The “big house” at Pleasant Plains burned down a few years after the War. (I happen to have a beautiful quilt which we still use occasionally which was made on that plantation before the War.) When El’s father, John J. Norton (see below), died the land was divided among many, many heirs. The Warren estate met with an identical fate. However, one of our cousins, Leila Warren, wrote a right good novel about the Warren family and its 19th century experiences, called Foundation Stone.[5] It provides some very accurate insight for future generations into the life style and values of our only ancestors who were really a part of the romantic culture and society of the planter class in the antebellum South.
Worthy Jordan Grubbs (1820-1890) was born on New Year’s Day at his parent’s farm in the Chesterfield District of South Carolina. I was always told that as a young man he volunteered for service in the Mexican War, but 1 have never found any evidence for that. He married and moved to Alabama where he acquired a substantial holding of good river bottom land in Barbour County. He was forty-one years old when the Civil War broke out and he had six children, ages five to sixteen, (five sons and one daughter)
Worthy was one of the organizing officers of the Fourth Alabama Cavalry.[6] They were a crack unit of three cavalry companies that were used in many ways in the war in Virginia 1862-65. Since they were detached and dispatched and re-attached to various brigades and regiments their records are fragmentary and imperfect. Sometimes Worthy J, Grubbs is recorded as “William J. Grubbs.” (His father was William Grubbs but he died in 1849, long before the War. Worthy had a son named William J. Grubbs, but he was only sixteen when the War began and was by no means a captain of cavalry in the Fourth Alabama. The “William J. Grubbs” who is sometimes so listed was, in feet. Worthy J. Grubbs.)
So far I have not been able to reconstruct the history of the Fourth Alabama Cavalry. They were attached to Mississippi’s Jeff Davis Legion of Cavalry and went to Virginia in early 1862. Later in the War they were transferred to Phillip’s Legion, to Hampton’s Cavalry, and then back again to the Jeff Davis Legion. When and where did Worthy J. Grubbs fight in the War? Was he at Chancellorsville? Gettysburg? Probably, but someone needs to research this.
Worthy began the War as a first lieutenant and as late as January 1865 he was still calling himself a first lieutenant. However, some of the post-bellum military records list him as a captain. In May, 1864, he was wounded in action near Stanard’s Mill at a place he called “Stanton bridge”, south of Fredericksburg in the area of what is now Fort A.P. Hill. He posted the following letter from somewhere in the field in Virginia to the Honorable J. A. Seddon, Secretary of War, CSA,[7]...
Camp Jeff Davis, Legion Cavalry January 9, 1865
Incert Letter of resignation
Within three months the war was over and Worthy J. Grubbs returned home. He lived for another quarter century. His daughter, Hepsey, had married Francis D. Veal before the war and Worthy lived to see their son, James David Veal, grown. The latter was my grandfather; Francis D. Veal my great-grandfather, and Worthy J. Grubbs my great-great-grandfather. Lieutenant (or Captain) Grubbs’ cavalry officer’s saber hangs in our den.
Sherod Jackson Belcher (1829-1921) was born on his father’s farm in Sumner County, Georgia. The family moved to Barbour County, Alabama, when he was still a child. He married Harriet Richards in 1856 and their daughter, Mary Ida Belcher, my great-grandmother, was born before the War broke out. “S.J.”, as he was called, was thirty- two years old when he answered his Country’s call and enlisted in the newly formed Twenty-ninth Alabama Infantry Regiment in February of 1862. His small farm adjoined that of his in-laws, and he left it in their care. Neither the Richards nor the Belchers owned slaves.
The Twenty-ninth Alabama participated in the defense of Pensacola and Mobile and in the early spring of 1864 they were transferred to the Army of Tennessee in North Georgia.[9] History indicates that the Twenty-ninth performed brilliantly in the battle of Resaca on May 13-15 and in the New Hope Church campaign. May 25 - June 4. At Peachtree Creek on July 20 they suffered a veritable slaughter but very few of them were taken prisoner in this battle which was infamous for the number of prisoners taken. In the ensuing battle for Atlanta their loses were terrible but they performed courageously.
The Twenty-ninth followed Hood to Tennessee for his attempt to regain the initiative. In the battle at Franklin, November 30, S.J. was wounded severely in the left hand and lost two fingers permanently. He was home on furlough for Christmas but back with his regiment in time to participate in the battle of Kinston, NC, on March 8,9, and 10 of 1865. The Twenty-ninth fought at Bentonville, March 19-21. When they finally surrendered in April there were less than a hundred men left in the regiment. S.J. Belcher was one of them.
S.J. and Harriet only had two children - unusual for those times - one daughter and one son. The son, William Richards Belcher, graduated from the University of Georgia and earned an M.D. from medical school in Cincinnati. He practiced medicine in Enterprize, Alabama, for many years. The daughter, Mary Ida Ray, nee Belcher, Married Albert Lee Ray. My mother was named for her. Mother was baptized “Ida Mary” but she was called “Ida Mae”. Eventually she simply went by “Mae” and the name she had put on her retroactive birth certificate was ‘Mae Searcy.”
S.J. and Harriet had less to lose in the Civil War than most of our folks, but as it turned out they lost virtually nothing. Except, of course, they lost three years of their lives together and, as with everyone else, they suffered the economic deprivations of the Reconstruction era.
S.J. was remarkably hearty for his times. When Harriet died in 1886, he remarried and lived and fanned until age 92. My mother knew and remembered him well, although he was her great-grandfather.
Footnotes
1 Confederate Military History, Volume XII, editor Clement A Evans, 1899, Atlanta, pp. 52-56 Return to Francis DeKalb Veal
2 Island No. 10: Struggle for the Mississippi Valley, L.J. Daniel and L.N. Bock, 1996, Univ. of Ala. Press, Tuscaloosa, p. 146 Return to Francis DeKalb Veal
3 Confederate Military History, Volume XII, editor Clement A Evans, 1899, Atlanta, 178-180 Return to Lemuel Dallas Searcy
4 ibid pp. 213-215 Return to Elbert Theophilus Norton
5 Foundation Stone, by Leila Warren, 1940, Alfred A Knopf, New York Return to Elbert Theophilus Norton
6 Confederate Military History, Volume XII, editor Clement A. Evans, 1899, Atlanta, p. 301 Return to Worthy Jordan Grubbs
7 Records and Reminiscences of Confederate Soldiers, edited by Mary Brantley Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, 1914, Eufaula Return to Worthy Jordan Grubbs
8 He was born on 1 January 1820. Return to Worthy Jordan Grubbs
9 Confederate Military History, Volume XII, editor Clement A Evans, 1899, Atlanta, pp. 150-151 Return to Sherod Jackson Belcher