Civil War and Trains

I had never been interested in the history of trains until I discovered that my great grandfather, Andrew J Healan, probably escaped heavy fighting in a Civil War Battle because the train was late.

I had documented that he was in the Ninth Georgia Regiment that served in the early part of the war with General Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of the Shenandoah. In reading Johnston's Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War, I learned that this army had fought in the 1st Battle of Bull Run, also called 1st Manasses.

"Ah ha," I thought, "A J Healan must have fought in that battle. " However, in further reading the General's Narrative, I discovered that not all his men actually made it to the battle. Then I stumbled upon a wonderful resource on the Internet that painted a picture of the situation. Charles T. Harrell wrote an article about the train problem and posted it on his web site, http://nps-vip.net/history/too_few_trains1.htm

In further research I found that the Ninth Georgia Regiment was one of units that waited at the train station for transportation. The train did not come until the fighting at Manasses was over.

Thanks to Harrell's article and Johnston's narrative, I learned a little of the history about trains. Harrell mentioned that this is the first time a General had used the railroad to move a large army to a major battle. Check out Harrell's article for a riveting picture of how some of our railroads began and how a little piece of history was made.

A Wealth of Information

The beginning of stories are almost everywhere. For the genealogist storyteller, old newspapers can be a neat source of more than information. They hint of stories that can tease my imagination.

I found my great-grandfather's name in shipping lists in newspapers from 1848 and 1850. I had no idea he had traveled by ship and that he had chosen a sailing vessel for one trip and a steamship for another.

It appeared he went to New Orleans each time, once from a port in New York City and once from Charleston, SC. He live in neighboring Georgia for about 25 years so using a SC port made sense to me. I have no idea why he traveled, but I could fantasize about what type of job he may have had.

Although there are free newspaper archives on the Internet, I used a paid service, www.genealogybank.com

For a list of both free and paid newspaper archives, check out
http://genealogy.about.com/od/newspapers/tp/newspapers_online.01.htm

Also check with local libraries to see if they subscribe to any online newspaper databases.

Surprise and Questions

The Healan Family appeared in the US in the late 1790s, based on Federal Census records. But how did they get here? Family stories said the Healans came from Dublin, Ireland. However, a search of Irish databases yielded no family name spelled as "Healan." I was stuck, or as genealogists say, I had "hit a brick wall."

Several years ago, Google began digitizing books with expired copyrights, http://books.google.com/
I tried out the free service and searched for the name "Healan," not expecting to find any references. To my surprise, "The Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin," vol. 3, popped up. Richard Healan, in the year 1615, was listed as a carpenter. Was this man related to me?

There is no way to prove a family connection to Richard, but my great grandfather, Michael Healan, was known to be a fine cabinet maker. A cousin has a desk the man made in the early 1800s. Maybe I don't have enough evidence to make a connection between the Richard of the 1600s and the Michael of the 1800s, but that doesn't keep me from thinking about it.

I perused this free book, learning about Dublin in the 1600s, and my imagination soared. I learned where Richard and his family might have bought oatmeal, flour, bacon and cheese. I leaned how local government regulations affected individuals.

If Richard Healan of the 1600s isn't my ancestor, I would adopt him if I could.

(Note: Since my initial discovery, Google has digitized more books, including those written by authors with the last name of "Healan." Some of these authors may be related to me. To get to my "Richard Healan," I have to search for his first and last names, using the quotes.)

Sarah, the Cow and General William T. Sherman in the Civil War

As a child I had heard my grandmother, Nana, tell the story of her mother Sarah confronting Gen. Sherman in 1864 (in Georgia) and demanding that he return the cow that his Union Army had stolen. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized that the story sounded too good to be true.

According to Nana, Sarah and her family lived on a 2300-acre plantation in northwest Georgia, a Confederate state. During the fighting, Sherman’s army raided the plantation and stole all the food and livestock, except for a cow that the cook’s son had hidden. The boy fed the cow meal to keep it quiet. When the meal ran out, the cow bellowed. Sherman’s soldiers followed the sound, found the cow and confiscated it.

Sarah had heard that Gen. Sherman was a Mason, so she took her husband Jack’s Masonic Apron and walked to the General’s headquarters, which just happened to be on the plantation. He was very gracious, “and with a wave of his hand, he ordered his soldiers to return the cow and escort her home.”

As an adult, I discovered many holes in the story. Sarah and her husband Jack did not live on a plantation. They lived in the town of LaFayette, Georgia. According to the 1860 slave census record, Jack had a 60-year-old mulatto cook. If the cook had a son, he was not counted.  

There were several true facts in the story. Jack was a Mason, and the town of LaFayette had been devastated by the fighting. A cousin recently speculated that two of Sarah and Jack’s babies had died of malnutrition in 1864. I believe Sarah was desperate, but did she confront the general? And would he have helped her, a resident in hostile territory?

On the Internet, I found General Sherman’s Memoirs that had been digitized by the Gutenberg Project for public use. I discovered that the general had been in LaFayette, but not on a plantation. His first priority was to feed his men, and he had taken sheep from a local farmer. In the memoirs, he justified stripping the land for food if he could not get supplies for his troops via the local railroad that was often damaged during the fighting. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4361/4361-h/4361-h.htm#ch16

Even more interesting – the general may not have been a Mason. According to Christopher Hodapp, the author of Freemasons for Dummies, there is no indication that Sherman was in the Masonic order. http://freemasonsfordummies.blogspot.com/2011/04/masonic-passover.html

Did Sarah go to the general for help? I think she may have. After all, her children did not have enough to eat. Did he help her? I don’t know, but I like to think that even Sherman would have given her at least some food. 

Ancestor Civil War

Challenge -- to write about my great grandfather, Andrew J (Jack) Healan, who served for four months in the Ninth Georgia Regiment in 1861 in the Civil War. I have a copy of Jack's enlistment record and a few of the company muster rolls listing him as present. What little I had was not enough for a good story.

Most of what I found on the Internet concerned the Ninth Georgia after Jack had resigned. There is almost nothing about the regiments' activities in the beginning years. Certainly there is no mention that the Ninth Georgia initially served in the Army of the Shenandoah.

Then I discovered General Joseph E. Johnston's Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War. He records that the Ninth Georgia joined his Army of the Shenandoah at Winchester, VA, in June 1861. Not all his troops made it to the battle at First Manasses in July 1861 because problems with the trains that were supposed to get all the soldiers to the battlefield in time. Now I had a story.

Later in the fall or winter of 1861, the Ninth Georgia was one of the many regiments to be reorganized into the Army of Northern Virginia.

A wonderful free resource for Johnston's book is Perseus Digital Library.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/

History

I love genealogy, but not names and dates.

A person's statistics mean nothing without knowing anything about their lives, the food they ate, the clothes they wore, their responses to what was happening around them.  I could be looking at skeletons that are exactly the same except for their sizes. But I can clothe these ancestors of mine with history.

Great grandmother Sarah and her husband Jack raised their children during the American Civil War. I can use what has been written about the skirmishes around their home to make their names vibrant and colorful. Sarah and Jack had 11 children; six of them lived. Two died during the war, perhaps from malnutrition.

History clings to Sarah and Jack, and from that I can clothe them with emotions.

Lessons

While I was on the front porch this morning the sprinkler was teasing the cherry tree with a cascade of water droppings. A very small brown and white bird hopped from one branch to another to savor the watery beads that clung to the bark. He or she would swipe his beak in the moisture, then hop to another branch.

A few minutes later the bird flew to the front porch railing with an adolescent in tow. I know the latter was young because he opened his beak as if expecting food, so old enough to fly but not old enough to want to work on getting his daily sustenance. The pair spent a few seconds together before swooping off to a patch of dead leaves and mulch in the rock garden. Then they flew to the cherry tree to taste the water. After that, I lost sight of them.