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General Family History (Civil War). Part 1: War

Posted in genealogy, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I am transcribing this from a 40-page typewritten photocopied document that was among my father’s research. I do not know the veracity of it all nor do I know how many posts the series will take up.  What is in italics is what I transcribed. My notes are not in italics.

In 1861 the war began. Four of her (Sarah Lord Wilox’s) sons enlisted; only two came back, one of the two shattered in health from a long imprisonment.

Sarah Wilcox died October 2nd, 1883.

Immediately after the firing on Ft. Sumpter (sic), came President Lincoln’s first call for troops. Wilbur I. Wilcox was at this time teaching. Willard J. Wilcox was engaged in making brooms. They immediately dropped their employment, and enlisted in the first company and first regiment that left Illinois for three months’ service – Co. A, 1st Regiment, Chicago Light Artillery. Willard was then 26, Wilber, 24 years of age. Saturday they went to Chicago and enlisted; Sunday they were journeying toward Cairo. They returned home on a furlough at the expiration of their enlistment, but re-enlisted for three years, or during the war, before returning home. After a few days at home they started again for Cairo and rejoined their battery.

                Cairo (Kay-ro), Illinois, was where U.S. Grant based his operations out of.

Willard fell from a caisson in Dec. 1861. As soon as (he) was able to travel after this injury, he visited his mother, remaining with her until after the marriage of his sister Mary on Jan. 1, 1862.

Before his furlough had expired he was recalled to his company. He was with the company which moved from Cairo, Jan. 10, 1862, on a reconnoisance (sic)  into Kentucky, returning Jan 22nd. At the battle of Shiloh, Willard and Wilber were both wounded. Willard carried a minie ball* in his head the remained of his life in consequence of this injury.

During the advance on Corinth, Willard and others were sent out after horses, at which time Willard was again wounded, receiving six buckshot wounds in the shoulder, and back of the head.

                The Battle of Shiloh was a Union victory at heavy cost. It was one of the bloodiest battles in the war with nearly 24,000 casualties. My brain can’t fathom that number! Corinth is a short distance from Shiloh, across the border in Mississippi, and was a Confederate stronghold.

Wilber was Sergeant when killed July 22, 1863. (Vicksburg?)

Willard re-enlisted in the veteran corps after three years’ service. He received four hundred dollars and a 30-days’ furlough. He was sergeant when mustered out in July, 1865.

Thomas Wilcox enlisted Aug. 11, 1862. He joined Co. A Chicago Light Artillery at Memphis. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Atlanta, July 22, 1864. He was released at the close of the war.

John Wilcox enlisted Sept. 4, 1862, 1st Sergeant Co. K, 88th Ill. Infantry/ He was killed at the battle of Chickamauga, Sept 20, 1863. He is buried with the unknown dead at Chattanooga.

Unknown Civil War Dead Chatanooga (credit: Pixabay – giselaFotografie)

Daniel E. Barnard enlisted Sept. 4, 1862, Capatin Co. K, 88th Ill, Infantry; mustered out at the close of the war.

Erastus A. Barnard was drafted Sept 27, 1864; assigned to Co. H, 30th Infantry; mustered out June 4, 1865. He marched with Sherman’s army to the sea.

E.A. Barnard was taken ill during the march to Savannah. He remained with the army until Savannah was entered. He was in the hospital there from Dec. 24, 1864 to April 1, 1865. Thence he went to Pocotaligo; from there by boat to Wilmington; then marched to Raleigh and joined his regiment the day before Johnston surrendered.

General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to General Sherman at Bennett’s Place, Durham’s Station, N.C., in April of 1865.

                Erastus A. Barnard married Mary L. Wilcox. Daniel E. Barnard was his brother.

                William Orson Wilcox (my ancestor) did not serve. I do not know why except, perhaps, he was left in charge of Sarah and his brother’s respective families.

*The Minié ball, or Minie ball, is a type of hollow-based. Invented in 1849 shortly followed by the Minié rifle, the Minié ball was used in the  American Civil War where it was found to inflict significantly more serious wounds than earlier round musket balls. (Source: Wikipedia)

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The American Civil War Weighs on Me

Posted in genealogy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 7, 2026| Leave a Comment »

In 2014, I had the pleasure and privilege to visit several cemeteries on the East Coast. My son lived in Fayetteville, North Carolina, at the time and I wanted to visit Bonaventure Cemetery because it was featured in some novel we passed around at work and I was fascinated. Since we were in Savannah, Georgia, we also visited the downtown area where the Colonial Park Cemetery is located. After I left my son’s family, I traveled to Richmond, Virginia, where I met up with two friends and we toured Oakwood Cemetery.

Bonaventure Cemetery lived up to the hype: it truly is a beautiful place. There are tombs, crypts, statues, and ever so much more. I took a lot of photographs with my DSLR and held the hands of my grandchildren as they wondered at all the headstones, crosses, and more. Over 500 Confederate dead rest there including some notable officers. A lot of war dead, period: we temporarily lost my son when he wandered into the World War dead section.

Colonial Park was a surprise and a bonus with its above-ground crypts. It was closed to burials before the Civil War but many heroes of the American Revolution are interred there.

Oakwood in Richmond has the richest Civil war history. One of my friends is a genealogist whose family fought on the Confederate side of the conflict (mine fought opposite hers). It is a pretty cemetery overlooking the James River, but it is also an oppressive place: the sheer numbers of men who lost their lives in that bloody conflict between the states is overwhelming, and I feel there’s a spiritual heaviness that comes with that kind of sacrifice.

It is hard for me to verbalize what I sense when I read about or visit a Civil war memorial, a cemetery, or just rote history. In 2023, my brother and I drove across the country (he drove, I bummed a ride with). One of our stops was the Vicksburg National Military Park. The trenches between North and South were so close together that you could well imagine the words of one of my ancestors in a letter to his mother:

Camp near Vicksburg, June 23, 1863

“We have a new battery, five light 12-pounders and one 10 pound parrot gun. They will carry further than our old battery; our men are at work making approaches. They are within a few feet of the enemy’s ditch in several spaces, but there has got to be a parallel ditch dug to hold many men before they can storm it. Our pickets are in one ditch while theirs are in another. They used to talk a great deal, but that has been forbidden, so they write on pieces of paper and pass backward and forward. One of our boys threw over a part of a loaf of bread and they threw back a biscuit. You can talk to them quite easy from the guns where Thomas stays, when they are on their breastworks. ~ Willard Wilcox”*

I did not recall at the time that letter was written from the very same site where Terry and I stood in 2023, 160 years and one month later, but you could feel the tension and almost hear the cannons and smell the blood.  It was an eerie place, not in the sense that it was frightening, threatening, or even scary, but you could feel the death still hanging in the air. The air was heavy and we didn’t breathe easily until we were back on the road and away from that pivotal and bloody battle site. I write this to explain ahead of time: writing about the American Civil War is a truly heavy undertaking and I have forty pages of that history as it relates to the Wilcox sons of Sarah Lord Wilcox.

*Willard was the brother of my great-great grandfather, William Orson Wilcox.

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Sarah Lord Wilcox

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on April 28, 2010| 2 Comments »

My dad sent me not only dry Family Tree diagrams, but a few photos and several vignettes of history.

Sarah Lord Wilcox takes up quite a bit of space in the vignettes, in stories that are not just about her, but are about her sons and the Civil War. I am guessing that my Uncle Mike typed the stories out and that he has the original letters the story teller refers to. I hope so. I want to know someone in the family owns the originals. (This means, of course, that a letter to Uncle Mike is in order)

Sarah Lord married William Wilcox the year they both turned 28. that was old for a bride in those days and way past traditional childbearing age, but she went on to bear seven children to William before his death. Sarah and William lived in Johnstown, Fulton Co., New York until 1844 when they moved to Illinois, somewhere near Chicago. William died within a year of that move, leaving Sarah and her seven children. She took in boarders, but she was really known for her skill as a weaver.

In 1861, the war began. Four of Sarah’s sons enlisted: Wilbur, Willard, Thomas and John. Reading the compiled history of the war: Shiloh, Corinth, Tallahatchie March, Stone River (Murfreysbury), Chickasaw Bluffs, Vicksburg, Jackson…

From one of Willard’s letters:

“Our men are at work making approaches. They are within a few feet of the enemy’s ditch in several spaces, but there has got to be a parallel ditch dug to hold many men before they can storm it. Our pickets are in one ditch while theirs are in another. They used to talk a great deal, but that has been forbidden, so they write on pieces of paper and pass backward and forward. One of our boys threw over a part of a loaf of bread and they threw back a biscuit. You can talk to them quite easy from the guns where Thomas stays, when they are on their breastworks.    -Willard Wilcox.”

“Our pickets” are the Union soldiers and “theirs” are the Confederate soldiers.

At the Battle of Chickasaw, in September of 1863, the Union army took a beating. Out of that rout came a letter from Sarah’s son-in-law, D.E. Barnard. (I may be a bit confused on the relationship – one of the Barnards was a son-in-law, two of them were in service with the Wilcox brothers.)

“I write to you now after the sad events of the last few weeks, not to inform you of John Wilcox’s death, but to give some of the particulars so far as I am able. Saturday morning we marched to the battlefield in haste, to the sound of the cannon… Sunday morning we drew rations; the 36th not getting theirs, we divided with them. John was very active in this, giving freely of his rations. When we went into battle he was by me and in the first line. He was fighting among the foremost. Soon, although we had driven the rebs (sic) immediately in front, they were gathering along both flanks on our left. Only a little in front I saw a rebel flag of a regiment, and called attention to it. We were directed to fire oblicuily (sic) at them, which we did, but as the fire grew hotter on both flanks, we were ordered to fall back, which we did, and rallied at the foot of the hill. During all this time John was with me. Soon I noticed that he stooped down. I asked him if he was hurt. He said he was hit in the foot with a spent ball. I asked him is he had not better retire, and if he was disabled.he said no, and kept on firing. Soon we fell back again by order, and he with the rest. I looked carefully but did not notice any particular lameness or blood. At this time I was among the last retreating, and a man badly wounded in the leg, a stranger, asked to be helped off the field. This I could not do, but just then one came with a wounded horse which he was leading, and offered to carry him on the wounded horse if he could get into the saddle. No one else offering, I helped him on, and he rode off rapidly. This left me in the rear, and I found the balls thick around me. I hastened to join the regiment. When I reached it, at some distance from the place, I found several absent, John among them. I inquired for him, and was told that he had been again wounded in the leg, and that he was making to the rear, and had doubtless got on a wagon or ambulance. As I could not find him, and I looked for him, I supposed this to be the truth, but at this very time he was probably dead, shot through the left breast. He must have died instantly. Such is the report of Sergeant Strouch who knew him well, and who placed his body under a tree, covered it with his shelter tent, and placed his head upon a knapsack.” — letter dated October 9, 1863.

John’s body was never recovered and he was buried as an unknown soldier among the many who fell in battle that day.

What a tear-jerker! And what a history: going from the one moment when enemies tossed bread & biscuits back and forth, to fallen heroes on both sides of the lines. There’s a lot more, but I wanted to share those most poignant letters.

Sarah Lord Wilcox lived to be almost 86. She was born 18 October 1797 and died 2 October 1883. She married only the one time.

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