My Great Great Granddaddy, Ira:
CSA - 49th Reg. - Ga. Volunteer Infantry - Army of Northern Virginia
8/9/1862-Wounded at Cedar Run, Virginia-amputated right thumb;
7/3/1863-Wounded at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania-artillery barrage;
4/31/1865-Prisoner Of War in Richmond, Virginia;
6/25/1865-Released at Newport News, Virginia.
Mama quotes him as saying:
“We killed as many yankees as we could, but there was just too damn many of ‘em.”
I have several paternal ancestors who were in Union regiments; my wife is descended from an Andersonville survivor.
One of my maternal bloodlines extends to a Swiss emigrant who arrived in the Pennsylvania colony in the 1740’s. While my ancestor in this line missed the Civil War (having been kicked to death by a horse in a livery stable in 1860) of his extended family 78 served the Union with 5 falling in battle or in prison. What I find staggering and sobering is that of the branch of the family which early on moved to the Carolinas, some 215 took up arms for the Confederacy and 65 of them—THIRTY PERCENT!—fell in battle or in prison.