Thank you very much. That is nice of you to say. I look forward to learning from your special insights and inside knowledge, so to speak.
Well, I appreciate that. But truthfully, my knowledge of it is rather thin.
About the only thing I got directly from family is that the Chandler farm at Fort Scott was an occasional stopping off place for John Brown.
Both parents, Ezra Chandler and his wife, along with a couple of other adult members of the family, died at Fort Scott in 1857. They were all relatively young, so I’m guessing they died in a cholera outbreak, which was fairly common on the frontier during that period.
My great-great grandfather Abner was a young teen when they died. The family scattered. Some went to Nebraska. Some went on to Oregon. A couple went back east to Lake County, Illinois, including Abner, who joined the Union Army at sixteen, serving throughout the war.
Abner fought in many battles, and was wounded in the drive on Atlanta, but recovered enough to fight in the horrific battles at Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee, which were truly the last gasp of the Confederacy.
One of his brothers was a POW at Andersonville. Somehow he managed to escape, and survive.