interesting. Two of my ancestors (father and son) were with the mid Maryland militia at Camden. After the Revolutionary War, The father (Richard McElfresh) gathered all his sons and families and went by wagons up to Pittsburgh, Pa where they started the Western Pa line of my family.
I have my great grand fathers Civil War Discharge hanging on my military wall, kinda cool. Richard Mc was the 4th generation in America; a David was kicked out of Scotland and made to Maryland in late 1600s. I'm the 11th generation and in Alaska.
I've seen the family bible from 1702 and they often had 2 wives each having 15 kids. 1/3 of the kids died from consumption (TB). We have it easy nowadays.
You are lucky to have all that information, as most families do not, particularly in the south. I did discover a newspaper clipping from the early 1900s that mentioned my great great grandfather was a veteran and had walked home from Appomattox with a bullet lodged in his thigh. I am currently trying to rebuild this family line, which is extremely difficult, as there are no bibles and no church records from the southern families and most people were buried in the field out back and those small cemeteries have not been respected or maintained. The census records are a tangled mess, as they reveal war widows who took in the children of other fatherless families…you can see this in particular neighborhoods that lost a lot of men.
My mom’s side were Yankees and one of her ancestors was a Calvary officer who was shot from his horse and died in Louisiana. He had sent home dozens of letters to his family. The letters were split among family members at one point and a portion of them were published, but my grandmother’s n’er do well brother absconded with their family’s portion and sold them for the stamps.