Posted on 12/13/2010 2:06:54 PM PST by Idabilly
When he mentions that his daddy fought for the Confederacy, H.V. Booth gets more than a few raised eyebrows.
“Really? Really?” Booth says, mimicking people’s incredulity. “They just can’t believe it.”
His father, Isham Johnson Booth, a country boy from north of Athens, played a bit part in the Civil War. But it was a grim role, the memory of which never left him and was something he rarely spoke about. He was a guard at Andersonville, the prisoner-of-war camp in south-central Georgia that has become synonymous with suffering.
Booth, who turns 92 this month, is the end of a chapter of American history. He is an actual son of a Confederate veteran. There aren’t many anymore. The Sons of the Confederate Veterans — the organization, that is — believes there are about 30 “real sons” still alive, including two in Georgia.
Their fathers were young when Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered in 1865 but old when they sired children in the early decades of the 20th century.
Near Vidalia, at a crossroads called Tarrytown, lives 84-year-old John McDonald, whose father enlisted with his rifle and horse when he was just 13, following two older brothers.
“We’re the last link,” Booth said in a recent interview. “We’re the last link of the mouth to the ear.”
There wasn’t much mouth-to-ear. Isham Booth didn’t talk about the war much to his son. They were too busy working. The elder Booth was a stern man who eked out a living as a sharecropper and died at age 86 in 1934, when his son was 15. Up until the end, he picked 90 to 100 pounds of cotton a day.
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
Amazing, the last living links to that incredible time.
His grandfather's name was John Tyler.
John Tyler was born during the Revolutionary War, was a veteran of the War of 1812, and was the 10th President of the United States.
amazing link to the past
My great-grandmother lived with me during the first 6 years of my life and the last 6 of hers. She was born during the last year of the civil war.
One gentleman who was one of my great great grandfathers married such a lady (his earlier wives had passed on), and I used to have regular correspondence with her daughter until she passed away recently.
He'd been a prisoner at Andersonville.
So, it's a small world folks. Odds are good that I knew a lady who knew a man who knew this gentleman's daddy!
And he should have had nightmares about that prison camp from what I've heard ~ really bad ones.
btt
Amazing that real sons are still aroud. My great-grandfather was in the 36th Virginia Cavalry C.S.A. and my father often talked with him as a boy. My Father’s stepfather was born in 1853 and was a teenager during the Civil War.
Thanks to Tip a Canoe.
Incredible that anyone is left. Nothing compares to word of mouth history from family members to remind us of our link to the past. My great grandfather was in the Confederate army and lived to 97, until I was 12. My late grandfather told endless stories from WWI. The hardships those old timers endured is unimaginable today.
I don’t care what side of the flame war you’re on, that’s just cool.
..and Tyler, too. (-:
Most even built their own homes, as my Grandfather did. Their home is still in the family!
Back in the 50s, when I was a kid, my grandparents took care of a bed-ridden great uncle whose room was on the 2nd floor of their home. I remember taking an occasional meal up to him. He was 13 when he fought with the 17th Arkansas Infantry Regiment. I was too young to appreciate the significance then.
This is fantastic!! Thanks SB!!
A few years back, my cousin from a small town in southeast South Carolina showed me a large trunk that belonged to his great grandfather.
There were stacks of mildewed Confederate paper money and all sorts of state and county bonds. Seems as if his wealthy family strongly believed in supporting the Confederacy by giving the profits of their farming and the specie of their inheritances to the cause of their liberty.
But his great grandfather apparently would not speak of his time fighting in Virginia.
He ran away from home at 16, in June 1861, to join up with the 21st Illinois regiment in Springfield, Illinois; commanded at the time by Ulysses S. Grant (until August of that year).
He fought with his regiment, for over two tears, up to and including the Battle of Chicamauga in September 1863 - one of the largest battles of the war, in terms of numbers of troops in the battle as well as numbers of dead and wounded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chickamauga
He was captured at Chicamauga and intitially sent to a prison camp east of Atlanta. He was soon moved to the camp that would become known as Andersonville.
As the article relates, about Andersonville: "Almost 13,000 prisoners died of disease, starvation and exposure to 100-degree days and freezing rains." and, "They’d get the fever," Booth said. "Daddy said they died like flies. There was no food, no medicine. He felt sorry for them.”
There was a line across the camp which no prisoner was supposed to cross, with guards on watch towers to see that nobody did.
Eventually, there was an unofficial process that took place in what the guards thought was an act of compassion. As the article relates, some of the men were so bad off they resembled walking skeletons, if they could walk.
If a prisoner was doing so poorly and felt his desperation was beyond repair, and if his buddies did not try to restrain him, then a union soldier in such a position and frame of mind would slowly approach the line and step across it, upon which the guards would end his ordeal.
On October 12, 1864 Albert Foxworthy, very much a walking skeleton at the time, crossed that line.
His family only learned how Albert's life ended because of local boys that survived Andersonville and made it back to Illinois, to tell the story to his parents.
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=k3c&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=andersonville+civil+war+prison&revid=1583285336&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=tKkGTdrpLIL78AbKwaXnAg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQsAQwAA&biw=836&bih=477
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andersonville_National_Historic_Site
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