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To: girlangler
He was mortally wounded and captured during the Battle of Dover (often called the Second Battle of Fort Donelson, even though it was fought in the town instead of the fort), fought on the afternoon of February 3, 1863.

His name was David Belcher, and he was a private in Company K of the 2nd Georgia Cavalry. He suffered a severe wound to the shoulder during the fight and was captured by the Union garrison when they recaptured the houses they'd abandoned to Forrest's troopers earlier in the fight. Taken to the field hospital at nearby Fort Donelson, David lingered for over a month before dying of an infection on March 10, 1863.

His cousin is my great-great-grandmother, who moved to Texas after the war and married a man who'd served with the 46th Texas Cavalry (McCord's Frontier Cavalry). All four of her brothers fought in the war, with one dying at Crampton's Gap, Maryland and another being captured at Cold Harbor and dying at the POW Camp in Elmira, New York. The two younger brothers didn't join the war until almost the end, thus missing most of the conflict. After the war, they headed to Texas with two of their cousins to find new homes for their families and ended up getting poisoned for the fifty dollars in gold they were carrying. Their cousins survived the poisoning, but they did not.

65 posted on 08/06/2007 12:35:55 PM PDT by Stonewall Jackson (The Hunt for FRed November. 11/04/08)
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To: Stonewall Jackson

Thanks for the reply. Fort Donelson was a major battle where the Confederates were greatly outnumbered, but fought hard, many also captured by the Union. Huge numbers of confederates were injured (I think about 400) and 100 died.

Just about everywhere you go in Tennessee there are Civil War markers. My ancestors also were in the war, I have a lot of info on their participation. If you ever get a chance to visit Tennessee try to visit some of these battlefields.

Just finished a book recently about the Cumberland Mountain area where I live. Many of the feuds here in the late 1800s were a result of grievances left over from the Civil War. Loyalties here were split and the term “brother against brother” was real here more than anywhere.


68 posted on 08/06/2007 1:12:02 PM PDT by girlangler (Fish Fear Me)
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