Two Heroes: WIlson and Shadrach of Andrews' Raiders

Note: This is the last in a series of four posts about heroic soldiers who were denied or overlooked for the Medal of Honor at the time of their extraordinary acts. Less than ten days ago, Congress authorized the award of the Medal to five of these men.

One of the most daring events of the Civil War took place in northern Georgia in April 1862. For their part in the affair, nineteen members of the Ohio volunteer infantry were awarded the nation's first Medals of Honor by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Unfortunately, two men, George D. Wilson, and Phillip G. Shadrach, were left out of the wards. Now, 146 years later, Congress has passed legislation to award them the highest military honor.

Major General D.C. Buell, in command of the Department of Tennessee, had employed a sometimes spy and contraband runner named James J. Andrews from Kentucky. Andrews conceived a plan to execute Buell's desire to disrupt communications and transportation between Chattanooga and Atlanta.

With twenty-two handpicked men from the Ohio Infantry dressed as civilians, Andrews walked from a rendezvous point near Chattanooga to Marietta, Georgia. They reached Marietta at about midnight on April 11, 1862. At that Marietta, they boarded a train for a station called Big Shanty not far from the Great Kennesaw Mountain.

While the engineer, conductor, and other passengers were eating breakfast, Andrews and his men uncoupled the locomotive called The General, its coal tender and three box cars from the rest of the train, all without arousing the suspicion of the soldiers at nearby Camp McDonald. Sixteen raiders secreted themselves in the boxcars. Andrews and Privates Wilson Brown and William Knight, both locomotive engineers, entered the cabin. Another soldier acted as fireman. The legitimate crew of The General looked up from their breakfast to the sight of the train teaming out of Big Shanty without them.

The raiders cut telegraph lines, removed rails, and burned bridges. According to the railroad schedule which Andrews had with him, they should have met only one other train, but for some reason they met three. The raiders told inquirers where they were compelled to stop that they were conveying powder to Beauregard's army. The first train that came to a broken spot had its engine reversed and became a pursuer of the raiders. About an hour was lost in waiting to allow these trains to pass, which enabled their pursuers to press closely upon them. Despite their best efforts, the time lost could not be regained. After having run about one hundred miles, they found their supply of wood, water, and oil exhausted, while the rebel locomotive which had been chasing them was in sight. Under these circumstances, they had no alternative but to abandon their cars and flee into the woods on Chickamauga Creek, some15 miles from Chattanooga.

Thousands of Confederate soldiers scoured the country in all directions and eventually captured Andrews and his companions.

The report of the Judge Advocate General about this incident to the Secretary of War included the following:

The twenty-two captives, when secured, were thrust into the negro jail of Chattanooga. They occupied a single room, half under ground, and but thirteen feet square, so that there was not space enough for them all to lie down together, and a part of them were, in consequence, obliged to sleep sitting and leaning against the walls. The only entrance was through a trap-door in the ceiling, that was raised twice a day to let down their scanty meals, which were lowered in a bucket.

They had no other light or ventilation than that which came through two small, triple-grated windows. They were covered with swarming vermin, and the heat was so oppressive that they were often obliged to strip themselves entirely of their clothes to bear it. Add to this, they were all handcuffed, and, with trace chains secured by padlocks around their necks, were fastened to each other in companies of twos and threes. Their food, which was doled out to them twice a day, consisted of a little flour, wet with water and baked in the form of bread, and spoiled pickled beef. They had no opportunity of procuring any supplies from the outside, nor had they any means of doing so; their pockets having been rifled of their last cent by the Confederate authorities, prominent among whom was an officer wearing the rebel uniform of a major. No part of the money thus basely taken was ever returned.

While the group was imprisoned at Chattanooga, Anderws was tried as a spy, convicted, and hanged at Atlanta on June 7, 1862. Following his execution, twelve others were transferred from Chattanooga to Knoxville, where seven of them were put on trial for spying. All seven were convicted and sentenced to death.

The Judge Advocate General's Report continued:

Among those who thus perished was Private Geo. D. Wilson, Company C, 21st Ohio Volunteers. He was a mechanic from Cincinnati, who, in the exercise of his trade, had travelled much through the States North and South, and who had a greatness of soul which sympathized intensely with our struggle for national life, and was in that dark hour filled with joyous convictions of our final triumph. Though surrounded by a scowling crowd, impatient for his sacrifice, he did not hesitate, while standing under the gallows, to make them a brief address. He told them that, though they were all wrong, he had no hostile feelings toward the Southern people, believing that not they but their leaders were responsible for the Rebellion; that he was no spy, as charged, but a soldier regularly detailed for military duty; that he did not regret to die for his country, but only regretted the manner of his death; and he added, for their admonition, that they would yet see the time when the old Union would be restored, and when its flag would wave over them again. And with these words the brave man died. He, like his comrades, calmly met the ignominious doom of a felon—but, happily, ignominious for him and for them only so far as the martyrdom of the patriot and the hero can be degraded by the hands of ruffians and traitors.

The fourteen remaining raiders were taken to Atlanta where they were confined. In October, 1862, all fourteen escaped from prison. Six made it back to Federal lines, six were recaptured, and the fate of two others has remained unknown.

On March 25, 1863, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton presented the very first Medals of Honor to the six remaining Ohio infantrymen, and gave them brevet commissions as lieutenants. Eventually all the raiders would be awarded the Medal of honor, save four: James Andrews, who was not eligible as a civilian, another civilian, and George Davenport Wilson and Phillip Gephart Shadrach.

It's not clear why Wilson and Shadrach were left out of the award of the Medal of Honor. Some reports say that Shadrach was disqualified because he had enlisted under a false name.

George Davenport Wilson was the son of George and Elizabeth Clark Wilson of Belmonmt County, Ohio. According to one source, he was married once, but divorced in 1861, before enlisting. He had a daughter and a son.

Phillip Gephart Shadrach (if that was his name) is listed on the military rolls as Charles Perry Shadrach. A source says he was the son of Robert and Elizabeth Shadrack of Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Information about him is difficult to come by and even more difficult to verify.

Congress on January 28, 2008 authorized the award of the Medal of Honor to these two heroic soldiers.

Revealing Heroes

Like most people, I spent some time at the end of last week perusing recently passed congressional legislation. :) (What? You don't?!) Anyway, one piece of legislation that came to my attention last week was HR 1585, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. (For those of you who really are paying attention, HR 1583 was vetoed by the President on December 28, 2007. It was reconstituted as HR 4986, addressing the President's concerns, which are not relevant to our story here. On January 22, 2008, final Congressional action was taken on HR 4986 and the bill was sent to the President. The President signed the bill on January 28, 2008. With respect to the issues addressed here, the two bills are identical).

This bill is the massive (1500+ pages) spending authorization for the Department of Defense for the coming year. In a bill this big, one can always find interesting little items that may go unnoticed by the pundits and the press.Which is exactly why I examine such bills. And in this bill, tucked in about the middle of the bill, under "Military Personnel Policy" is an interesting provision. Subtitle F of Title V of the bill, entitled "Decorations and Awards" contains sections 561-565, each of which begins, "Authorization and Request for award of Medal of Honor to . . . ." By these sections, the Congress intends to rectify historical wrongs or oversights that deprived five military men of their nation's highest honor. The legislation is brief in each case, and it doesn't tell much of the stories of these five men.

GeneaBlogie went behind the legislative language, to uncover five stories of heroism. The five heroes are Privates Philip G. Shadrach and George D. Wilson (Civil War), Master Sgt. Woodrow W. Keeble (Korean War), and Spec. 4 Leslie H. Sabo and PFC Henry Svehla (Vietnam War). Over the next several posts, we'll will tell their true stories.

More Minnesota News: Soldier Identified After 144 Years? Maybe . . . .

I like stories of this sort.

Nearly a century and a half after the Battle of Gettysburg, the body of a Minnesota soldier killed there may have been discovered in a Confederate cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina. The body may have been mis-identified in 1863.

The man buried as Private John O. Dobson of the 2d North Carolina Infantry apparently was really Private John O. Dolson of the 1st Minnesota Infantry. The error was discovered by Charles Purser, a retired Air Force officer, who had undertaken the renovation of the cemetery.

Read more here. The news story doesn't tell all of Dolson's story, so we had to do a little digging of our own [bad pun not intended, but I'll leave it in!]. John Dolson was born in Eden, Illinois, in about 1843, the fifth child of Charles and Elizabeth Dolson. Charles Dolson was a merchant; he and Elizabeth had come to Illinois from New York. Their other children were Albert, Elizabeth, Margaret, and Celia, all older than John; and Charles, Jr., younger than John. Sometime in the 1850's, the Dolson family split up, perhaps due to the death of Charles, Sr.

John ended up in Minnesota with his older sister, Margaret, living in the household of William and Mary Moffett. He enlisted in the Army in October, 1861, when he was 19 years old.

Two things were missing from the news story. First, it seems to me that to be sure about this story, we need to eliminate the possibility that there was a John Dobson in the 2d North Carolina. In the various databases I checked, there were a number of John Dobsons in the Confederate forces from North Carolina, though none in the 2d Regiment. However, the Civil War databases are not complete and certainly not free from error. So it seems to me that there is some small room for the possibility that the man in the grave was properly identified the first time.

Second, although there are a number of Dolsons in Minnesota today, the story did not mention the reaction of any Dolson family members. This is a significant omission to me, especially in view of the first issue I raised. In this age of technology (exhumation, DNA), it seems strange to me that the family seems not to have been consulted.

Page 161

So I've been tagged by Chery at Nordic Blue for the "161" meme. In this meme, one dislcoses the contents of the sixth sentence on page 161 of one's current read. I've read a lot lately, but when the tag came in, I was in the midst of Dudley Taylor Cornish's The Sable Arm, which tells the story of black troops in the Civil War. This 1956 work was perhaps the first serious scholarly work devoted to this topic and as one reviewer said, it's "readable, interesting, sound, with interesting insights."

My great-great-grandfather, Zeke Johnson, served from 1864 to 1866 in Company D, 18th United States Colored Troops.

The prospect of Negro troops, while not overwhelmingly popular in the North at first, provoked outrage and fear of slave rebellions in the South.

Page 161, sixth sentence:

"I shall," he [Jefferson Davis] told his Congress, "unless in your wisdom you deem some other course more expedient, deliver to the several [Confederate] State authorities all commissioned officers of the United States that may hereafter be captured by our forces . . . that they may be dealt with in accordance with the laws of those [Confederate] States providing for the punishment of criminals engaged in exciting servile insurrection."

Cornish, Dudley T., The Sable Arm: Black Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865, (with Forward by Herman Hattaway) (Univ. of Kansas Press, 1987)

Darius, what have you found in your local library lately?

Rise Above the Noise and Confusion . . .The Civil War Starts in the Heartland

Our Story So Far: In 1820, the United States Congress decided to link what had been several separate measures to admit Missouri (a slave state) and Maine (a free state) to the Union and to prohibit slavery in the territories north and west of Missouri. This legislative package was known as the Missouri Compromise. The idea was to maintain a balance between the slave states and the free states while stopping any further spread of slavery in the country. However, in 1854, Congress enacted the Kansas-Nebraska Act, organizing Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory. The legislation effectively overturned the Missouri Compromise by providing that the issue of slavery in the territories would be decided by the people of those places. The result in Kansas was voter fraud and violence. Unintentionally, the Congress had lit the fuse to the Civil War. The following description of the not-so-slow burn comes from the July 1856 report of a select committee appointed by the U.S. House of Representatives to investigate "the troubles" in Kansas:

In October, A. D. 1854, Gov. A. I. Reeder, and the other officers appointed by the President, arrived in the Territory. Settlers from all parts of the country were moving in in great numbers, making their claims and building their cabins. About the same time, and before any election was or could be held in the Territory, a secret political society was formed in the State of Missouri. It was known by different names, such as " Social Band," " Friends' Society," " Blue Lodge," " The Sons of the South." Its members were bound together by secret oaths, and they had pass-words, signs, and grips, by which they were known to each other; penalties were imposed for violating the rules and secrets of the order; written minutes were kept of the proceedings of the lodges; and the different lodges were connected together by an effective organization. It embraced great numbers of the citizens of Missouri, and was extended into other slave States and into the Territory. Its avowed purpose was not only to extend slavery into Kansas, but also into other territories of the United States, and to form a union of all the friends of that institution. Its plan of operating was to organize and send men to vote at trite elections in the Territory, to collect money to pay their expenses, and, if necessary, to protect them in voting. It also proposed to induce pro-slavery men to emigrate into the Territory, to aid and sustain them while there, and to elect none to office but those friendly to their views. This dangerous society was controlled by men who avowed their purpose to extend slavery into the Territory at all hazards, and was altogether the most effective instrument in organizing the subsequent armed invasions and forays. In its lodges in Missouri the affairs of Kansas were discussed. The force necessary to control the election was divided into bands and leaders selected; means were collected, and signs and badges were agreed upon. While the great body of the actual settlers of the Territory were relying upon the rights secured to them by the organic law, and had formed no organization or combination whatever, even of a party character, this conspiracy against their rights was gathering strength in a neighboring State, and would have been sufficient at their first election to have overpowered them, even if they had been united to a man.

Your committee had great difficulty in eliciting the proof of the details in regard to this secret society. One witness, a member of the legislative council, refused to answer questions in reference to it. Another declined to answer fully, because to do so would result to his injury. Others could or would only answer as to the general purposes of the society; but sufficient is disclosed in the testimony to show the influence it had in controlling the elections in the Territory.

The first election was for a delegate to Congress. It was appointed for the 29th of November, 1854. The governor divided the Territory into seventeen election districts, appointed judges, and prescribed proper rules for the election. In the first, third, eighth, ninth, tenth, twelfth, thirteenth, and seventeenth districts, there appears to have been but little if any fraudulent voting.

The election in the 2d district was held at the village of Douglas, near fifty miles from the Missouri line. On the day before the election large companies of men came into the district in wagons and on horseback, and declared that they were from the State of Missouri, and were going to Douglas to vote. On the morning of the election ,hey gathered around the house where the election was to be held. Two of the judges appointed by the governor did not appear, and other judges were selected by the crowd; all then voted. In order to make a pretense of right to vote, some persons of the company kept a pretended register of squatter claims, on which any one could enter his name, and then assert he had a claim in the Territory. A citizen of the district, who was himself a candidate for delegate to Congress, was told by one of the strangers that he would be abused, and probably killed, if he challenged a vote. He was seized by the collar, called a damned abolitionist, and was compelled to seek protection in the room with the judges. About the time the polls were closed these strangers mounted their horses and got into their wagons and cried out, "All aboard for Westport and Kansas City." A number were recognized as residents of Missouri, and among them was Samuel H. Woodson, a leading lawyer of Independence. Of those whose names are on the poll-books, 35 were resident settlers and 226 were nonresidents.

The election in the fourth district was held at Dr. Chapman's, over forty miles from the Missouri State line. It was a thinly settled region, containing but forty-seven voters in February, 1855, when the census was taken. On the day before the election, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty citizens of Cass and Jackson counties, Missouri, came into this district, declaring their purpose to vote, and that they were bound to make Kansas a slave State, if they did it at the point of the sword. Persons of the party on the way drove each a stake in the ground, and called it a claim; and in one case several names were put on one stake. The party of strangers camped all night near where the election was to be held, and in the morning were at the election polls and voted. One of their party got drunk, and to get rid of Dr. Chapman, a judge of the election, they sent for him to come and see a sick man, and, in his absence, filled his place with another judge, who was not sworn. They did not deny or conceal that they were residents of Missouri, and many of them were recognized as such by others. They declared that they were bound to make Kansas a slave State. They insisted upon their right to vote in the Territory if they were in it one hour. After the election they again returned to their homes in Missouri, camping over night on the way. We find upon the poll-books 161 names; of these not over 30 resided in the Territory, and 131 were non-residents.

But few settlers attended the election in the fifth district, the district being large and the settlements scattered. Eighty-two votes were cast; of these between 20 and 30 were settlers, and the residue were citizens of Missouri. They passed into the Territory by way of the Santa Fe road, and by the residence of Dr. Westfall, who then lived on the western line of Missouri. Some little excitement arose at the polls as to the legality of their voting,; but they did vote for Gen. Whitfield, and said they intended to make Kansas a slave State, and that they had claims in the Territory. Judge Teagle, judge of the court in Jackson county, Missouri, was present, but did not vote. He said he did not intend voting, but came to see that others voted. After the election, the Missourians returned the way they came.

The election in the sixth district was held at Fort Scott, in the southeast part of the Territory, and near the Missouri line. A party of about one hundred men from Cass county, and the counties in Missouri south of it, went into the Territory, traveling about 45 miles, most of them with their wagons and tents, and camping out. They appeared at the place of election. Some attempts were made to swear them, but two of the judges were prevailed upon not to do so, and none were sworn, and as many as chose voted. There were but few resident voters at the polls. The settlement was sparse; about 25 actual settlers voted out of 105 votes cast, leaving 80 illegal votes. After the voting was over, the Missourians went to their wagons and commenced leaving for home.

We'll have more on "Bleeding Kansas" in the future.

Access to Rare Photos Wanted: 18th, 62nd & 65th U.S. Colored Troops

Among the stories I'm seeking to tell is that of Zeke Johnson (1847-1933), my great-great-grandfather. Grandpa Zeke "left" his master, one Wilhite, in Clay County, Missouri, in 1864 and enlisted in the 18th Regiment, U.S. Colored Infantry. He served until 1866. I'm looking for access of any sort (loan, copy, purchase, or view) of the 18th Regiment. I don't know if any exist, but I'm looking everywhere I can.

The 62nd and 65th Regiments, USCT, are also near and dear to me, since they founded Lincoln Institute, now Lincoln University, in Jefferson City, Missouri, after the war. My parents met while in college there, and I was born in Jefferson City. I'm also seeking access to any photos of those regiments.

Anyone who has any information may contact me at craig at geneablogie dot com.

Today is "Zeke Johnson" Day

A week from this Thursday, which would be June 14, 2007, is the 160th anniversary of the birth of my great-great-grandfather, Ezekiel Johnson. I've written about him before (here, here, and here). For awhile, he was one of my very difficult brickwalls. And then one day, a sudden breakthrough gave me some special insight into his origins and at the same time raised more questions. I've been trying to solve some of those questions.

In genealogy, it never hurts to go over ground that may have been plowed once or twice before. I was exploring various databases for "Ezekiel Johnson" or "Zeke Johnson," when I found buried treasure! I'm so thrilled about this that I hereby declare today to be "Zeke Johnson Day" at GeneaBlogie.

What I found were Grandpa Zeke's military records in a database labeled "U.S. Colored Troops Compiled Military Records." I realized that I had looked here before for "Ezekiel" but not for "Zeke," which is how the records were indexed. These records contain a lot of information.

A key element of these records is a card which is transcribed as follows:

18 | USCT

Zeke Johnson,
Co. D, 18 Reg't US Col'd Inf
Appears on
Company Descriptive Book
of the organization named above.

Description
Age 17 years; height 5 feet 4 inches
Complexion Black
Eyes Black Hair Black
Where Born Missouri
Occupation Farmer

Enlistment
When July 23, 1864
Where Kansas City
By Whom Capt Hall; term 3 years
Remarks: Battle of Sand Mountain,
Ala.; Jan 29, '85

That document tells me several things I did not know: that he was a short man (his granddaughter and great-granddaughter are in miniature as well). He enlisted at age 17.

Another significant document is this one:

Click on image to enlarge
Image Copyright (c) The Generations Network, Inc. Used in accordance with Limited Use License

Now we know quite bit more about Ezekiel Johnson, to wit:

Born in Clay County in 1847, Zeke Johnson was in 1864 the slave of one Henry Wilhite. In May, 1864, he "left" Wilhite and in July, 1864, in Kansas City, he enlisted in the 18th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry. He received a bounty7y of $300 for enlisting. In September 1864, he joined the regiment at Benton Barracks near St Louis.

The regiment moved to Nashville in November 1864 and participated in the Battle of Nashville in December of 1864. They then moved on into Alabama, fighting the Battle f Sand Mountain in January 1865 and then remaining in Alabama until February 1865. Moving to Tennessee next, the 18th remained there until being reassigned to Huntsville, Alabama in 1866. The unit was mustered out at Huntsville in February 1866. Zeke Johnson was present for duty at all of these times except part of August 1864 and Sept-Oct 1864 when he was hospitalized for diarrhea

When he was mustered out, Zeke Johnson was entitled to keep his musket and "accoutrements." He owed the Government $21.54 for clothing, but the Government still owed him $100 as part of his bounty.

We don't know exactly what Grandpa Zeke did immediately after leaving the Army, but we know that on September 5, 1867, he married Sarah Gilbert back in Clay County. In the late 1880's, the Kansas City directory showed him residing at 2544 Cherry and working as a carpenter for Standard Implement Co.

And what of his erstwhile master, Henry Wilhite? He joined the Confederate Army, but beyond that, we don't know any more about him.

I had never known the name of Zeke's slave-owning family until I saw it in these records. This knowledge will advance my research significantly. For reasons that I've written about before, I don't think Wilhite was Zeke's original or only master. I think Zeke is the 3 year old male shown in the ownership of Emmons Johnson on the 1850 slave schedule. We need to find some transaction between Emmons Johnson and Henry Wilhite.

Ezekiel Johnson died on August 8, 1933, having lived long enough to see his great-granddaughter, my mother.

The U.S. Colored Troops Military Service Records are on Ancestry.com as part of their Military collection. Curiously, they are not part of the Civil War collection. The records are from the National Archives, Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780's-1917, Record Group 94.
The use we made of these records here illustrates the value of such records to the family historian. Of course, the National Archives has available similar records for military personnel of all races. Check this page for pre-World War I records.

Carnival Carousel: Art, Science, and Serendipity

This comes from the GeneaBlogie archives. It's an edited version of three posts that ran over the Fourth of July Weekend, 2005. It's a bit lengthy, but I've put it on the Carousel because I wanted to share one of my favorite stories.


[My parents are recovering from jet lag on their Independence Weekend trip to visit me in Tysons Corner, Virginia. ] We've been to breakfast, watched the Nationals whip the Chicago Cubs, had lunch, and cleaned my kitchen. Dad says casually, "Did I ever tell you about Mr. Richardson who lived next door in Rockport [Texas]?" He's watching the television as I surf the 'Net idly. Mom is reading the last chapter of The Pelican Brief. "You mean your Aunt Pearl's husband, Eddie Richardson," I reply from my rapid recall of my paternal pedigree. I don't even look up from my keyboard.

"No," Dad says, "I mean Mr. Richardson, the Civil War veteran who lived next door to me in the late '30's or '40's. I never knew his first name. But he wasn't related to Aunt Pearl's husband." Dad's affect, as the professionals say, never changed as he spoke. But he now surely had my full attention.

Whoa! The Civil War veteran . . . who lived next door . . . ! Who had the same surname as a relative by marriage [and hence as our cousins] in a town of less than 3,000 people . . . ! Yes, Dad, you've got my complete attention now!

"Did you ever speak to this Mr. Richardson?" I ask my father. "Gosh, no," he says, "He was old and a mean curmudgeon. I was just a kid. I saw him, though."

As I listen to my father, I've pulled up my paternal genealogy on Personal Ancestry File and have quickly searched for my father's Aunt Pearl. Pearl Bryant was born in June, 1897, in Rockport, Aransas County, Texas. Among her ten siblings were Hattie Bryant (1888-1944), my dad's grandmother, and Sam Bryant (1889-1951). In 1916, Pearl married Eddie G. Richardson, who had been born on May 20, 1892, also in Rockport.

I say to my father, "Aunt Pearl's husband, Eddie, was the son of a Thomas Richardson, born about 1867." I then use PAF's Internet search feature to swiftly locate Thomas Richardson on the 1880 census. There are a lot of Thomas Richardsons, but only one in Refugio County, Texas, the parent and adjacent county to Aransas.

"And his father was one Grant Richardson, born about 1840 in Alabama," I continue. "That would make him old enough for the Civil War."

Now I've got my father's attention. He's at the computer, gazing over my shoulder. "He lived next door. He was old. I'd see him out slopping his hogs. He had a wife, but she may have been a second wife, because people referred to 'his' children, not 'their' children."

We search on-line census records. At the time of the 1880 census, Grant Richardson lived in Refugio County, Texas, with his wife, Ellen, and sons Thomas, William, Walter, Adam, and Galvan. Mr. Richardson's age is given as 30, which, if correct, would make him almost too young for the Civil War. But who knows?

In the 1900 census, we find Grant Richardson in neighboring Aransas County along with Ellen, Walter, and a son born after the 1880 census, Silas. Grant's date of birth is given as April, 1840. In the 1910 census, Grant Richardson is found living alone in Rockport as a widower. The entry in the age column is not legible.

The last available census on which Grant Richardson appears is the 1920 census. But what we found there was completely unexpected.

The Fourteenth Census of the United States came to Precinct 1, Aransas County, Texas, on 26-28 January 1920. On January 27th, enumerator Milton Phillips was working the area now roughly bounded by East Market Street and Highways 35 and 70 in Rockport. At a house he recorded as No. 58, Phillips found Grant Richardson, a widower, who Phillips noted as being seventy years of age and a native of Alabama. As the head of household, Phillips put down Phinney Davis, a 55 year old widow woman.

But eighty-five years later, it's two other names that fuel my father's interest as we examine Milton Phillips' work.

"Who are these . . . ," Dad stops mid-sentence. He's looking at the names "Samuel" and "Hattie" at No. 58. Phillips recorded "Hattie" as Mrs. Davis' 30 year old daughter and "Samuel" as her 28 year old son. Dad recognizes the names because Hattie Bryant, born 1888, was his grandmother and Sam Bryant, born 1889, was her brother. They were both born in Aransas County. Their parents were Guy Bryant [1858-1920?] and Maria (muh-RYE-ah) Martin [1861-1901?].

This discovery, though surprising, "fits" in a way. My father's recollection is that in the 1930's, he and his mother lived in his grandmother Hattie's house next door to Mr. Richardson's place. And in a town of fewer than 3,000 people, how many brother/sister pairs born at about the same time would be named "Samuel" and "Hattie"? A lot of circumstances start to add up here.

But in genealogy, as in other fields where facts matter, researchers have to be suspicious of the seemingly convenient "fit." By 1920, Hattie Bryant had had at least five children, one of which was my dad's mother, who would have been yet a child. Likewise, Sam Bryant had had at least one child not yet an adult by 1920. So if Hattie and Sam were living with Mrs. Davis and Mr. Richardson in 1920, where were the others in their families? Well, another mystery for the time being; this story's about Grant Richardson.

Having examined all of the available census records and done other research, my dad and I have come to our separate conclusions. I'm convinced that a man named Grant Richardson, possibly old enough to have been a Civil War veteran, lived next door to my father in Rockport, Texas, in the 1930's. Dad is now convinced that the old man next door to his childhood abode, who he believes was a Civil War veteran, in fact was his aunt's husband's grandfather.

"How about that!" Dad exclaims. He's satisfied and probably has had his portion of research for now.

But was Grant Richardson a Civil War veteran? Or was that a tall tale my father heard or even imagined six or seven decades ago as a little boy?

"He had an old canteen with 'US' stamped on it. I saw it," Dad says.

The next day, I take my parents on a field trip to resolve the issue.

As my parents and I get out of the car on U Street NW, just past Vermont Avenue, the rich redolence of barbeque drifts from a corner stand. Across the street, clubs and restaurants occupy the rowhouse buildings. It's easy to imagine this a thriving uptown in the 1920's and 1930's. I almost expect Langston Hughes to come out of one of the coffeehouses and I can see young Edward Kennedy Ellington running playfully around the neighborhood long before succeeding to his duchy.

We're in the heart of Washington, D.C.'s storied Shaw district, about as far as possible from Rockport, Texas, in culture and distance. From the corner of Vermont Avenue and U Street, right in front of the barbeque stand, my father says, "Look at that!"

"Oh, yeah!" Mom exclaims. "I don't know if I have my camera." They did not know where we were headed on this field trip or why. But now they've both spotted the intelligent sculpture that sits in the middle of the African-American Civil War Memorial.

As we cross the street to the Memorial, Mom finds an old disposable camera in her purse. We walk around the perimeter of the Memorial, on which there are metal plates containing the names of more than 200,000 black soldiers who served in America's most tragic conflict. They are arranged by unit. I lead Dad around to the plaque for the 67th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry.

"How about that!" Dad exclaims, as he examines the name GRANT RICHARDSON.

Serendipity Forever: On July 12, 1865, the 67th U.S. Colored Infantry was consolidated with the 65th Regiment. Later that year, the soldiers of the consolidated 65th USCI contributed $1400 to a project commenced by their brethen in the 62nd USCI--the establishment of an educational institution for the benefit of freed blacks. On September 16, 1866, Lincoln Institute opened in Jefferson City, Missouri. In September, 1951, my father arrived at Lincoln University from Texas as a new freshman. My mother, from Kansas City, was a junior that year. They married after her graduation in 1953. I was born the following year. In October, 2005, my dad attended his 50th reunion--with a tiny new bit of history to tell.