It's A Family Affair

[03Fox2/1]

Here's a current story about a Civil War veteran from long ago that shows that emotions still run deep. The attachment that many of us, especially in the South, still have for our ancestors, will never diminish.
Semper Fi


From Charlotte Observer
10-29-2007


Civil War Ends For One Soldier


A soldier believed by some to have switched sides in the Civil War will soon have two markers at his grave - one Confederate and one Union - after feuding relatives reached an agreement last week.
Stephen Shook, who relatives say died June 10, 1902, had been resting with a Union Army tombstone since at least 1920 in a private cemetery in Madison County, north of Asheville.
Relatives visiting the cemetery in summer 2006 quickly noticed that Shook's Union tombstone, which lists him as a sergeant, had been replaced with a Confederate tombstone. The Union stone was lying on the ground nearby, undamaged.
Richard Hill of Gastonia, a relative of the soldier, was charged this month in Madison County with desecrating a grave.
The charge was dropped last week after family members met with prosecutors and came to an agreement, a spokeswoman with the District Attorney's office said.
According to the District Attorney's office, Hill has agreed not to disturb the Union stone, which was put back in May, if he can place a plaque at the foot of the grave noting Shook's Confederate service.
When contacted by phone Sunday, Hill declined to comment.
Shook's great-great-grandson, Bennie Whitt, 51, of Mars Hill, said he and other family members were upset that Shook's grave was disturbed without permission.
"To us it wasn't really no big deal as far as the Yankee or Confederate deal," Whitt said. "...But this was a historical marker, and it upset us more that someone went in there and did this."
Family history indicates that Shook switched sides during the war, Whitt said.
Whitt said his great-great-grandfather entered the war as a Confederate soldier but left when he was denied a leave of absence to attend the funeral of his 9-year old daughter, who had died in a fire while he was away.
Shook later enlisted in the Union Army with a Tennessee cavalry unit, Whitt said.
Whitt said the family has enlistment papers signed by Shook when he entered the Union Army, but they were not immediately available.
Shook's tale, if true, was a familiar one during the Civil War, said James Hogue, associate history professor at UNC Charlotte. A West Point graduate, Hogue has focused much of his research on the Civil War.
Online records of Civil War soldiers at the National Park Service list four entries for the name Stephen Shook.
Three of them show privates in the Confederate Army, cavalry and infantry, with different North Carolina units and one Stephen Shook in the Tennessee cavalry of the Union Army.
According to the records, the Union Army soldier entered as a private and left as a sergeant.
Soldiers deserting their units were a problem for both sides during the Civil War, Hogue said. Letters from home telling soldiers of sickness or pleading for help with the crop harvests prompted many to leave, often without permission, and most never returned, Hogue said.
North Carolina provided the highest number of soldiers for the war, with an estimated 125,000, but also had the highest number of deserters, estimated at between 10,000 and 15,000, Hogue said.
Sheila Grindstaff, a great-great-granddaughter of Shook, is just glad that her family's last battle of the Civil War is now over.
"I'm relieved that that's the end of the story," she said.

[Bombardier]

That is a strange scenario for the families to be in. Its difficult for me to understand why the family removed the union headstone? given that Stephen had deserted and had shown that he had no loyalty to the confederacy.
In the circumstances I believe the end result to be the right one, a Union headstone as he had voluntarily served with them and his service finished with them, and a confederate plaque to recoginise his service albeit tainted slightly, with the Confederacy.

I suppose the argument that could now be presented would be that he only deserted because of the death of his daughter and the confederacy's refusal to allow him leave?, I would say (IMHO) that if that were the case why would he join the Union if he believed so badly in the Confederate cause.
Perhaps that may have been because he needed the money to support his family and the confederates would have been less than sympathetic if he returned, but I doubt thats the case.

Interesting post 03Fox2/1 (Y)

[rotorwash]

I'm chuckling as I read this, you have to experience the rural South, unless you have lived it, it is difficult to understand. Having been a Union soldier, it would have been more likely that his body would have been thrown in the nearest river with the headstone holding it down.

Burying people is an institution down here, there are more funeral homes per capita then any place I have ever seen. In every cemetary there are sections set aside for Confederate dead, rarely have I seen a Union grave outside of the VA or military post cemetaries. Anyplace a Johnnie Reb successfully shot at a Yankee there is a historical marker and some of these backcountry people actually think the South will rise again.

My third year living in North Carolina I was asked to speak at a meeting of the local Sons of the Confederacy chapter. I was apprehensive, but, hey, a free meal was involved, so I'm game for anything but a low crawl.

Being a Westerner, and basically a Yankee at heart, I told them they had the wrong guy, but in so many words they told me they were really hard up.

I gave them a history of the Civil War in New Mexico and I thought some of them were going to cry when they found out the South lost - again. They could not understand why all the miners in Colorado sided with the Union instead of the South.

The real state motto of South Carolina is "Forget??? Hell!!"

As for switching sides, it was very common, in fact after every battle the winners expected a big influx of deserters. As the South began to get hungry, frying bacon brought in more deserters then cash bounties.

[03Fox2/1]

Forget Hell ! Indeed, South Carolina has no monopoly on these sentiments.

First, some words of wisdom from R.E. Lee:
"We must all,however, resolve on one thing---not to abandon our country."
(--Lee after Appomattox, dismissing suggestions that he should flee the country--)

Also, I agree, both sides had deserters for many reasons but hunger and rape and ruin of the civilian population was foremost a Southern problem. And let's don't forget the riots in New York City, after Gettysburg, in 1863, a battle that the North won, because there was so much unrest with the draft and the large casualties suffered by the North and the seemingly unending war.

Here's another example of our long Southern memory and how we honor our war dead. From an article in our local newspaper as reported on January 22, 2008. By the way, I still haven't heard the verdict yet, I'll report when I do.

"Digging at Confederate Justice"

An Albemarle group's efforts to honor the remains of a Confederate soldier could be resolved in an unusual proceeding by the National Park Service next month.
On February 13, the Park Service will hold a mock trial near the Petersburg, Virginia, National Battlefield to decide whether Sgt. Ivy Richie is buried in a Union soldier's grave under a mismarked headstone.
Ritchie, who lived near Richfield, N.C. in what is now Stanly County, fought with the 14th N.C. Regiment in nearly every major battle of the Civil War in Virginia. Confederate historians say he died in the last battle at Appomattox Court House, the final engagement of this war in that state.
"It's heart wrenching to go through all that hell and get killed on the morning of April 9th when it's all over. It brings tears to the eye," Jim Harwood of Albemarle said. "And then to know he's laying up there in a Yankee grave just tears me up. He hasn't rested in a hundred years or more."
Harwood and other members of the Albemarle-based Sons of Confederate Veterans', Ivy Ritchie Camp 1734, have been trying for years to get their name-sakes remains moved below the Mason-Dixon line -- or at least get his tombstone corrected.
They say the remains were removed from Appomattox after the war, mistakenly buried at a new national cemetery for Union dead in Petersburg, Va., and marked with a gravestone for a Sgt. J. Richie of Company H, 14th New York Infantry.
The National Park Service, which maintains Petersburg National Battlefield, refused to exhume the remains in grave #4824 in the Poplar Grove National Cemetery section of Petersburg.
But it agreed to do its best to correctly identify them without the benefit of physical analysis.
The mock trial will take place at the pre-Civil War-era Dinwiddie Court House, about a half-hour's drive southwest of Petersburg.
A historian for the National Park Service, Chris Calkins, says the Petersburg National Battlefield has never held such a trial and he's unaware of any proceedings like it.
Historical experts on both sides will present evidence to three more experts acting as judges, who will decide if there's proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Ritchie's remains rest among the enemy.
Through the Sons of Confederate Veterans members preferred DNA analysis, they're excited about the chance to prove their belief, which they base on a book written by Calkins.
Harwood became aware of questions surrounding Ritchie's whereabouts after founding the SCV's camp in 1995. Searching Confederate records of Stanly County soldiers, he came across Ritchie's name. He said the records indicated Ritchie was the last soldier in the Army of Northern Virginia to fall.
Harwood tracked down Calkins, the chief of interpretation at Petersburg National Battlefield. Calkins' book, "The Battles of Appomattox," theorizes that the remains in grave #4824 might be Ivy Ritchie's, though the expert doubts claims that Ritchie was the last man in General Robert. E. Lee's army to be killed in battle.
Quoting from his book, Calkins said, "It is believed Ivy Ritchie is mistakenly buried as a federal soldier... Since the 14th New York did not exist in 1865, chances are this is Sgt. Ritchie of North Carolina."
Calkins, who will represent the park service at the trail, said he's since found evidence that may prove otherwise.
"It could be the guy from New York (as marked) or it could be somebody else with a close-to name," Calkins said by phone from Virginia.
Regardless of the mock trail's outcome, the camp has already remembered Ritchie with a permanent marker at New Bethel Lutheran Church in Stanly County, where the soldier's parents are buried.
Harwood said Ritchie married Clara Ridenhour while recuperating from a wound he suffered at Chancellorsville, but the couple had no children.
Camp members hope to prevail at the trail, as Ritchie and his fellow Confederates failed to do at Appomattox Court House.
"I felt it was an important part of my state's history to get this man identified," said camp member Tony Way, who pressed the park service to honor the group's request. "I guess I'm a driven individual and I don't really take no for an answer."
Calkins is closed-mouthed about the evidence he'll present for the park service at the trail. 'Putting it on record, which I did in my book, and changing a tombstone is another thing," he said. 'Only God knows who is in that grave."