Flesh Out Information On Confederate Ties
I just finished reading a delightful little book titled “The Plain People of the Confederacy.”
I picked this book up some time ago at a used book sale in the Holland Library, down on the Washington State University campus.
Author Bell Irvin Wiley wrote the book in 1943, when it was first published by Louisiana State University Press. It was reprinted in 1963 by Encounter Paperback of Chicago.
The preface to the small book is worth quoting:
“The common folk, white and black, constituted the bone and sinew of the Southern Confederacy. White yeomen comprised the bulk of the armies that followed Lee in Virginia, Joe Johnston in the central South, and Kirby Smith beyond the Mississippi.
“These rustics were not all exemplary soldiers by any means. Some of them were overly fond of liquor; others were impervious to discipline; thousands absented themselves without leave: many preferred filth to cleanliness; hundreds played the coward when the bullets whistled close.
“But on the whole, they were good fighters. It is not too much to say that the record of the Confederacy on the field of battle must stand or fall on the basis of their performance.
“The wives, children, parents, and other home connections of the plain soldiers composed the overwhelming majority of the South’s civilian population. These people had many rough edges. Many could not write.
“Their speech was usually crude and their manners unpolished. But they had many virtues. For the most part they were sturdy, hard-working, respectable citizens.
“The colored folk constituted about a third of the Confederacy’s populace. They were not the docile, ‘Old Kentucky Home’ type of subservients that romancers have depicted them to be. Most of them idealized freedom and grasped it with alacrity when Yankee soldiers brought it within convenient reach.
“While the slaves waited for emancipation, they raised foodstuffs for civilians and soldiers, ran spinning wheels and looms on the plantations, worked in factories and mines, built fortifications, and served as nurses, cooks, and personal servants in the Southern army. Their good humor buoyed the spirits of white associates both at home and on the firing line. Their contribution to the Southern cause was enormous.”
This book really brightened one of our February gray days for me. As we’ve done our Southern genealogy, we are all too aware of the “big people,” the politicians, plantation owners and generals. Yet most of our ancestors were the plain people, the “little people.”
Even in published sources, the “common taters” of the South are barely mentioned, and then only as a group. It was time for me to take another look.
Pages 10 and 11 of the book tells that “Confederate soldiers had many other woes besides hunger and raggedness. In summer, the flies, mosquitoes and gnats that swarmed about encampments made life utterly miserable. Body lice gnawed away without regard to season.”
“There is not a man in the army, officer or private, that does not have from a batallion to a brigade of body lice on him,” wrote one Reb in 1863. Others dubbed the pests with such military names as “graybacks,” “Zouaves,” “tigers,” and “Bragg’s bodyguard.”
If you have Southern ancestry and have been pleased and proud to document Confederate service, please take time to think about all the family and friends involved with that “Johnnie Reb.” That soldier had parents, siblings, children and cousins, and possibly a host of servants, who were the “plain people of the confederacy.” Take the time to learn about them, too.
While we’re talking about the Civil War, did you know that of the 2.3 million men enlisted in the Union Army, 70 percent were under 23 years of age? Approximately 100,000 were 16.
There were 300 lads 13 or less, and records show there were 25 soldiers no older than 10.
Did you know that Union Army hospitals treated over 6 million cases during the war? There were twice as many deaths from disease as from hostile bullets. Diarrhea and dysentery alone took the lives of 44,558 Union soldiers.
You cannot really do genealogy without some understanding of history. To know that your ancestor died in a Southern prison camp is one thing, but to know the full circumstances of that camp, how, why, when and where it operated, is to know the full story.
All too many family historians eagerly and cheerfully gather skeletal information (the main facts: born when and where; married when and where; died when and where) and chase on to the next ancestor.
The discovery of a Southern or Confederate ancestor is a case in point. There is so much information at your fingertips about the Civil War that there is no excuse for not learning the complete story of your ancestor’s life.
Visit the library. Get some books and start learning today about that history as it applies to your genealogy.
EWGS classes
The second series of educational classes sponsored by the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society will be offered this month on three consecutive Wednesdays in the auditorium of the Spokane Public Library downtown. The class for next Wednesday will be “Using Probate Records in Your Research” and be presented by Marvel Ruark Miller.
The class for April 12 will be “How to Use Land Records” and given by Marvelene Roach Carney. The last class, on April 19, will be “Searching Cemetery and Church Records” and be led by Shirley Penna Oaks.
These free classes will be held twice daily, 1-2:30 and 6:30-8 p.m. To allow organizers to plan space and have enough handouts, preregistration is requested.
You can sign up in the genealogy section of the library or call Bette Butcher Topp at 467-2299.
Today’s tip
Those researching the Upchurch name might want to contact Michael Enterprises, P.O. Box 387, Wentzville, MO 63385. The Upchurch Bulletin has been in publication for 16 years, and all back issues are available.
Send your Upchurch pedigree along with your request for information.
Today’s laugh
Notice in The Settler, a newspaper of Bradford County, Pennsylvania, for Aug. 4, “At Burlington, Sunday, were married Eliphalet Gustin, bordering on 70 years of age, and Miss Sally Mills, aged about 16 years, after a courtship of full half an hour.”
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