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American Civil War Part 3

Posted in genealogy, tagged , , , , , on February 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »

 The Siege of Corinth took place April 29 – May 30, 1862. This was before the battel of Vicksburg in 1863. We are stepping back in time a little, to a previous campaign my ancestors were part of, before John Wilcox died at Chickamauga in 1863.  10,699 rebels were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. 12,217 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. Let those numbers sink in a little bit.

A “battery” consisted of six guns: four 6-pounders and two 12-pounders. My great-great uncles wrote a few letters home during this conflict.

May 2, 1862

The army is moving toward Corinth. Our division has not moved yet, but expects to in a day or two. Have been out on two marches lately.

May 22, 1862

I have about recovered. I put on my clothes today. I shall be ready to take part in the next skirmish. Wilber is well.

About the attack being a surprise, in one sense it was and it was not. We were all well aware of the enemy’s being near, for they had driven our outposts the day before and was in sight on the roads from our line. We were on the extreme right of our line so were in reserve, but as soon as the battle commenced were moved to the left. Grant was at Savannah when the battle commenced, which was about four miles down the river from where the hospital was. Some of our line gave way the first fire, but other portions fought well and inflicted heavy loss on the enemy. The principal part of the loss on both sides was on the first day. It depends a great deal upon circumstances about what anyone does, but I can say one thing that no man of Co. A can say: I stayed with the battery three hours after I was wounded, and I passed through one of the most trying scenes of my life.

W.J. Wilcox.

After the battle of Shiloh, the rebels withdrew to Corinth. The last of April the Union army began the advance toward Corinth. Corinth was evacuated by the rebel army May 30, McClernand’s reserve, consisting of his own and Lew Wallace’s division, was then turned west to Bolivar and Memphis. Battery A. was sent with this division, reaching Union Junction, near Memphis, June 17, 1862.

Memphis, July 13, 1862

Just arrived from White River where squad 2 went last Monday to guard a steamboat. Went up the river about 125 miles.

W.J Wilcox

~~~

Memphis, Oct 1, 1862

We had an order for boards for our tents, which looks like staying all winter here. Wilber had just been drilling us in dismounting the guns and carriages, so we can show off at grand battalion review. The squads try to see which can harness and hitch the horses on the guns the quickest. Squad 2 came out five seconds ahead; we were two minutes and twenty-five seconds with the postillions and cannon mounted. Last week we had a trial at target shooting at a snag in the river, 1,000 yards off, about as big as a man. Wilber came out best.

Thos. Wilcox

~~~ Note: a 1,000 yard shot is a long shot. Think eight football fields, lengthwise, assuming the distance is 120 yards (10 football fields if you lay them down goal post to goal post). The most common rifles used during the Civil War had a firing distance of about 300-500 yards. Even today, that is one heckuva distance for an average deer rifle, say a .30-30. Of course, they were probably firing artillery and I have no clue what the ballistics are.

Nashville, Nov. 14, 1862

All I have to say is that I have enlisted, and have no grumbling to do, but intend tyo live and die as a true soldier, but my advice to them that have homes is, they had better stay there. We have marched 440 miles since leaving Louisville. Capt. B and I cook together, eat and drink from the same dish, and sleep together. He has the privilege of buying his rations. I saw him with sixteen doughnuts. I have not taken any private property of any kind.

John Wilcox

~~~

Memphis, Dec 14, 1860

Arrived yesterday/ Gen. Sherman came back with us. We lived on the inhabitants partly while out. The boys went for everything they wanted. The General had to stop them. We did not bring in as many negroes as when we were out last summer.

WJ Wilcox

So much of the Civil Way was about stealing food, ravaging the opponent’s homesteads and mansions, and taking slaves to force them to be soldiers on whichever side managed to take them captive. It was not pretty, it was not neat, and it often wasn’t about setting the captive free as much as it was about using the captive to bolster the military numbers. It was a savagery that ripped across the American soil.

When you hear current politicos talk about “another civil war”, you wonder how much of history they have read. How much blood spilt, families divided, homes wrecked, and innocence destroyed.

Yet, it is my family’s history. And I hope they were all like John, not taking what wasn’t theirs.

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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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Jaci’s Great Adventure Part 2 (Levi better read this)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 4, 2008| 3 Comments »

I just spent the better half of my evening crawling under the stairwell, looking for the box that contains my old journals. I had a faint hope that I actually kept the one from this trip, but alas! I did find old journals dating all the way back to 1979, but the entry on the first page of the 1979 journal states that I burned all journals prior to that year. I was afraid of that.

I also pulled out the photo album and scanned some grainy photos from my trip, but I will have to do some photo shop on those and add them when I get to that part of the story. I didn’t take very many pictures: this was pre-35 mm SLR (for me) and my Brownie wasn’t convenient to pack, so I carried a 110 camera that took God-awful photos.

Oh, I need to add this: this *is* about how I ended up in Orygun. I didn’t set out to tell how I ended up here, but this trip was how I ended up here. Crazy.

Arwen probably wonders why Levi would relate to this tale more than she would: because he’s about to step off the edge of the world, too, and he needs to know his mother did it 31 years ago. You just take your chances and hope you draw a full house.

WHY did I decide I was going to see America? I had a thin excuse that I read this story in the Bible about the rich man that couldn’t give up his possessions. So I thought if I gave up all my possessions (except my cat, of course), then I would be – what? Holy? I don’t know. Maybe I would hear God. I also had a vague notion that if I dropped out of college to do a female version of John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charlie, I ought to start traveling. Only I was too chicken to hitchhike, so I bought a six week pass on Greyhound.

Don’t ask me if I ride the bus now. Not even Tri-Met.

Since I don’t have my journal to help, I can only guess at some of the dates. I’ll have to make up some names. Some names I remember. All the people I remember. And (fortunately), I dated the backs of the few photos I have. I traveled from May into June. I started in Winnemucca, NV and ended in Baker City, Oregon.

I had some things with me that I considered indispensable: a copy of Dante’s Inferno to read, a copy of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet to give away, and the Bible I’d earned in 5th Grade by memorizing the 23rd psalm. I’d never read it and I figured I’d have plenty of time to read on the bus. Even a person prone to car sickness can read on the bus, right?

Well, actually, no. I did most of my reading while waiting for buses. When I was not people watching.

Finally, everything was ready. I was moved out of my apartment, most of my possessions had been sold (I nearly cried when I parted with my Marty Robbins LP collection. But a collector picked it up, so I was certain it would be well cared for. I know you were dying to know that).

That’s true, you know: I really did own a collection of Marty Robbins’ western LPs. And I really prized them. He had a great voice, but only when he sang western songs like “Cool Water” or “El Paso.” I never cared for “You Gave Me a Mountain.” If you’re sniggering, I hope one of those songs gets stuck in your head.

Don’cha listen to him, Dan

He’s a devil, not a man

And he spreads the burning sands

With water. Cool water. Cool, clear water.

Happy now?

Norma’s husband drove me to the bus depot in downtown Winnemucca on the day I was to set out. I could have walked: that was the idea of a backpack, but Jim said he would drop me off. No fanfare. No friends to see me off. They all thought I was nuts.

The bus depot was on the main drag through town which was then the only way through town: the bypass was being built but had not opened. The Star Broiler and the Nixon Opera House (with its resident poltergeist) were still standing. The bus depot was a seedy affair (why are bus depots seedy?) and vacant except for the clerk, myself and a very drunk Indian. He wasn’t waiting for the bus; he was just passing time until he sobered up enough to find someone to buy him more drinks. It was very sad and I made a mental note to never forget him. For one thing, he wasn’t old enough to be such a raving alcoholic and I wondered what pain he was drinking to drown?

It seemed a rather depressing way to leave Winnemucca: a drunk who passed out on a bench and no one to say “good-bye” to me. But I was really going to do this. I was 20 (there, I confessed to how old I am!), footloose, and free. A free spirit on the road. I didn’t have a dog to travel with me and “Cat” (yes, I really named my cat that) had to wait for me, but I was doing it.

Next installation: Salt Lake City and Wasatch Academy.

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