150 Years Ago at THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA

Part One: William Anglin 

This year is the 150^th Anniversary of many of the battles of the Civil War. This is definitely true of the Battle of Chickamauga which was fought on September 20, 1863.  This date is significant to our family, because we had family members who fought at that battle, and one in particular was wounded, only to die by October 5, about 3 weeks later.  He was our Anglin ancestor, my Great-Great Grandfather, William Anglin, whose ancestors had come into Yancey County, only a generation before, and settled the very land where the family now still lives. A tombstone, in the Anglin/Ball Cemetery on Will Anglin Road designates that William M. Anglin is buried in the Confederate Cemetery, in Marietta, Ga.  I have visited both, places and when my curiosity was peaked to know more, I found a remarkable story. It is very appropriate that it be told this month, exactly 150 years after his fall on the Chickamauga Battlefield, near Fort Oglethorpe, Ga.

But let me begin with what led up to the day he joined the Confederate service.  William M. Anglin, Jr. was born in Yancey Co, NC in 1826, the son of William Anglin, Sr. of Greenbriar Co., West Virginia, who was our first Anglin ancestor to move into Yancey Co., NC. (It was Burke Co at the time. Yancey was formed in 1833 when Will Jr. was about 7.) William, Jr. married Sarah (Sally) Caroline McIntosh, with whom he had 5 children.  James who was born in 1849 was a full ten years older than the son they named Robert, who became our Great Grandfather. The 1850 Census for Yancey Co. shows William 21 and Sarah 23 with new baby James who is 1.   After James, two children were born who I lost track of after the census record of 1860. A female, Jona at age 10, and a male named Silas, age 4.  By the next Census, Silas could have been apprenticed to someone at age 14, but they were not listed at home.  There are unmarked graves in the Anglin/Ball cemetery, and I have wondered if the graves might have belonged to them.

Our Great-grandfather, Robert (Bob) John Anglin was born 7 September, 1859. Their 4^th child. His father would be wounded in action only 13 days after Bob’s 4^th birthday.  The fifth child, was Mary C. Anglin, born in the same year her father enlisted.  I would bet her middle name was Caroline, and I know she was a love child of a couple who were about to be separated by war.

William was enlisted in Co. G, 58th. North Carolina Infantry Regiment.  The unit was formed on July 11, 1862.  Four days later, William enlisted on July 15, 1862. Records state he was 34 years old, and 5' 10" in height. His unit was mustered into service of the C.S.A. on July 24, 1862. " Co. G. was sent to Johnson City, TN for drill instruction and received limited dry run training in the nearby local Tennessee mountains. The company received their first battle orders on or about Aug 26, 1862."

  The records I was able to find, have him born in 1826. 1862 minus 1826 would have made him age 36 at some point that year.  I found it interesting that he said he was 34.  At age 35, he would not have been required to serve. It was the cut off year for conscription, even though neither the North nor the South seemed to check your birth certificate. If you looked the right age, you better be a soldier on one side or the other.  Or be killed.  Simple as that. No one was allowed to stay home with family, and claim he was not of the age to fight. I haven’t checked the rosters lately, but it occurs to me that his 14 year old son, Silas could have lied to enlist and would have been accepted if he looked the part. Within only months, the conscription age limit was dropped, and some men were being taken to war up to age 45.

I always wondered why William enlisted.  But for all the reasons above, and at least one more, he had little choice.  If you look at the list of men enlisting the same couple of days as him, it is clear that most of his neighbors and cousins enlisted that day as well.  It was well known that the Union soldiers were moving ever closer to their towns and properties and homes.  Many did not want to choose between the North and the South.  They knew it would mean that they stood against their own kin further North if they joined the South. So some fled North to fight with them.  But many held hope that the war would be over before they had to choose, and fleeing at this late hour put them in harm’s way.  Some held firmly to a belief that their homes and farms didn’t belong to a Federal decision making process. Some held slaves.  Some who held slaves had released slaves, years earlier.  Some just wanted to stand with the choice North Carolina made.  But, for whatever reason, William chose to join the 58^th North Carolina in July.

 http://mountainmemorials-cemeteries.blogspot.com/p/anglin.html

I will not be able to tell the whole of William’s story in a week’s worth of blogs.  So I am wondering if I should introduce him here, and actually make a page or website devoted to him and the rest of the story.  I have many pictures to share, and a step by step outline of exactly what those last fateful days of his life were like.  I know where he was, almost day by day from August 1862 on.

To me it is significant that it has been exactly 150 years now, and whether we agree with his service with the Confederacy or not, matters not to me.  He was one of the men to whom we owe our existence, who was forced to leave his family and die for the cause.  He was as it turns out, one of the men who drove back the Union forces at Chickamauga. He suffered from his wound as he was moved from place to place, as the hospital units attempted to move wounded men ever further south by train, ahead of advancing union soldiers.  He was not a man sick and lying in a bed waiting to die. He was moved numerous times, often did without food, lay in the mud, on itchy beds of straw, and suffered through the constant movement of  trains on rugged tracks which transported him at least twice for miles. The last time he was moved, the trip to a town above Atlanta, was all his body could take.  He died within days of arriving to one of the “hospitals” in the area.  All who arrived alive were recorded as being buried in the “Hospital Section” of what later became the Confederate Cemetery in Marietta, Ga. 

In the next 4 weeks, I want to celebrate his life, share his courageous attempt to live, and help you find a place to visit him, acknowledge him, cry for him, and be thankful for him.  And most of all, I want us all not to Forget him!!