Tuesday, July 03, 2012

The Honor Roll of Company F: Jackson County's Fallen in the Peninsula Campaign

Jackson County’s soldiers were largely spared in the early battles of the war. A few men perished of disease but the ranks were mostly intact until early 1862. But that spring and summer, about 30 Jackson County men succumbed to disease - that relentless leveler of Civil War soldiers - many at hospital in Chattahoochee. Young recruits, including teenagers, were particularly hard hit. Officers too perished, including Capt. Lawrence Attaway and Capt. Daniel Boone Coleman, a salesman from Wakulla Co. residing in the home of James F. McClellan at the time of the 1860 census taking.


Combat also began to take its merciless toll. Two men were listed as dying at Shiloh in late April: Henry Rogers (age 24) and Franklin Brown (31). At least seven Jackson County soldiers from Company F, the Gulf State Guards, of the 2nd Florida Regiment, died in combat in the Peninsula Campaign, particularly at the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31 and June 1st. The rolls of the fallen heroes of the Company F include: Richard Howard (20), James L. McAnulty (20 yo); Joseph Padrick (21 yo); Thomas Player (23 yo); Albert Butler (21 yo) and Robert Irwin (24). This list is completed by J. Henry Pooser, who only 3 weeks prior to his death had been voted Captain of Company F, in place of James F. McClellan. (Note: Gideon Peacock of Co. F had succumbed to disease at a Richmond Hospital in late April). Thus, only a few months more than one year after the start of hostilities, well over forty Jackson County households mourned their war dead. Many more were to follow.

[I've assembled these names as part of a large database that aspires to trace the service records and fate of Jackson Co. men listed in the 1860 Census.  Please email me with any corrections or questions.].

Monday, July 02, 2012

Charles, F. Crosby, a Panhandle African American, Recounts His Experience in the 86th USCT

From Donald R. Shaffer's "Civil War Emancipation" blog come Charles Franklin Crosby's responses during a pension application interview. Crosby goes into detail about his background, service in the 86th USCT, and his remarkable post-war experiences. It's so rare to find these first person statements from African Americans about their army service.  He was raised as a slave near Geneva, Alabama on the Florida side of the border. I'm assuming he's from Holmes Co. but I don't see the Eli and Polly Nunn family he mentions as his owners on the 1860 census listings for the panhandle counties.  
Here's the link to Shaffer's account (which also appears in his book Voices of Emancipation: Understanding Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction through the U.S. Pension Bureau Files (2008)):
http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/a-black-veterans-story