BROTHERS IN ARMS AND IN DEATH
Mortality Rates in four Civil War Union Cavalry Regimental
Companies from Tennessee,
for Soldiers Who Had Immediate Relatives in the Same Regiment,
Versus Those Who Did Not.
By
Temperance Blalock
#100667
American Military University
SC404
Epidemiology
Professor Larry M. Forness
September 13, 2002
CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4
INTRODUCTION .
4
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
METHODOLOGY – Soldiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5
Methodology - Familial Relationships . . . . . . . .
9
Findings – Demographics . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
13
Mortality Demographics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
Causes of Death
Typhoid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
19
Measles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
21
DEATH ANALYSIS BY REGIMENTAL COMPANY
Co C 2nd TN Cavalry Deaths . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Co K 2nd TN Cavalry Deaths . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Co C 4th TN Cavalry Deaths . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Co K 4th TN Cavalry Deaths . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
26
ENDNOTES
28
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2
29
TABLES
Table
Page
1. Summary of Demographics . . . . . . . . . . . .
2. Summary of Demographics (Deceased Soldiers). . 17
3
12
SUMMARY
Two parallel companies, each from two Union Cavalry regiments from
Tennessee, were examined to determine whether soldiers who served
alongside blood relatives had higher mortality rates than those
who did not.
INTRODUCTION
The United States Civil War of 1861-1865 has often been called the
war of "brother against brother", but upon close examination of
some regiments it can also sometimes be called a war of "brother
serving alongside brother".
A review of the rosters of several
Tennessee Union Cavalry regiments reveals a remarkable number of
multiple occurrences of surnames, some common and some not, and
closer examination of the data shows that many of those soldiers
were related to each other.
The most common relationships were
brother/brother, but there were also a number of father/son and
cousin/cousin relationships present.
Detailed genealogic
examination can reveal even more extensive relationships, most of
them non-blood relationships (brothers-in-law) or more complicated
blood relationships, and census data analysis of household
proximity can demonstrate that clusters of neighbors and friends
also joined and served alongside each other.
4
In the course of conducting detailed research on one regiment (the
Fourth Tennessee Cavalry (USA)), this author discovered several
dramatic cases of multiple family members who enlisted together in
the same company, were taken sick together, and died within a
close time of each other.
Those cases provoked the general
question of whether soldiers who served alongside family members
had a higher mortality rate than those who did not.
METHODOLOGY - Soldiers
Two Tennessee Cavalry companies were chosen as subject groups,
from each of two regiments.
The Fourth Tennessee Cavalry has been
the focus of the author's attention and research for several
years, and two companies of that regiment (Company C and Company
K) are included in this study.
Another Tennessee regiment, the
Second Tennessee Cavalry (Company C and Company K), was included
as it shared many characteristics with the Fourth: most of the
enlistees were citizens of East Tennessee and Southeast Tennessee,
both regiments came into existence at approximately the same point
in time, and the regiments often served alongside each other, both
in battle and in camps.
The last characteristic could potentially
make them collectively subject to some of the same contagious
epidemics or pandemics that spread through camps.
5
Rosters and records for both of these regiments are extant and
easily available from a number of sources.
Not all sources match,
however, and thus it was necessary to extract data from several
sources and then compare it, in order to determine the exact
identity of those individuals who qualified for inclusion in the
analysis.
Regimental rosters are available online at the "Civil War Soldiers
and Sailors System"1.
A single regiment's roster can be
downloaded in Excel spreadsheet format, and includes the following
data for each soldier:




Name
Company
Rank In
Rank Out
This minimal data is helpful for creating a skeleton structure, in
Excel spreadsheet or exported into an Access database, to which
one can then add additional data.
The main drawback of the “Civil
War Soldiers and Sailors System” databases is that they often
contain multiple listings for an individual soldier, due to
multiple variations of surname spellings, and thus are not
reliable for statistical analysis.
The second source consulted was the "Adjutant General's Reports"
for each regiment, which were official rosters published by the
6
Tennessee State Government shortly after the War.2
The AG Report
includes the following data for each soldier:









Company
Name
Rank
Date of Enlistment
Age at Enlistment
Muster-in Date
Date of Death (if appropriate)
Date of Desertion (if appropriate)
Date of POW capture (if appropriate)
The AG Report's roster for each of the four companies was compared
against the Access databases created from the NPS rosters;
additional data was added to the database from the AG report, and
multiple surname variations for an individual were deleted,
leaving only the surname version as listed in the AG report.
Next, the Official muster rolls at the National Archives were
consulted.3
These microfilmed records include a "General
Description Card" for most individual soldiers, which includes the
following information:









Name
Company
Rank
Age at Enlistment
Date of Enlistment
Place of Enlistment
Occupation at Enlistment
Recruiter
Place of birth
7




Height
Hair color
Eye color
Complexion color
Considerable additional information can be found in the muster
rolls, including: presence or absence of the soldier in the
regiment during a given period; desertion, AWOL, or resignation
dates; Prisoner of War information; hospitalization dates; and
death information.
The latter usually includes the date of death,
place of death, and cause of death.
Where discrepancies were found between information in the AG
Report and the muster roll, the muster roll was generally held to
be more reliable than the AG Report, and thus was used.
The most
common discrepancies included age at enlistment, date of death,
and date of desertion.
Finally, the General Pension cards4 were examined; these include
the soldier’s regiment, company, name, and rank, and state whether
the soldier was granted an invalid pension, or whether the
survivors of deceased soldiers were granted survivor pensions.
This information was used as a resource to confirm that a soldier
died during service.
8
Once the above resources were examined and transcribed, the
attempt was made to define the exact number of qualifying soldiers
in each regimental company.
This required the deletion of certain
individuals, namely "early deserters".
Sometimes called "bounty
jumpers" in Civil War lore, they were usually men who enlisted in
Union regiments simply to obtain the cash enlistment bounty, and
then disappeared shortly thereafter.5
Many of those soldiers have
been enumerated in certain official documents, such as the AG
Report, and thus can inflate the number of soldiers alleged to
have served in a regiment or company.
The author excluded from
analysis all soldiers who deserted within six months following the
enlistment date or the muster-in date, whichever came later. The
muster-in date could potentially have been several months after
the soldier enlisted, and thus many early deserters fled service
without ever having actually mustered-in, while others did serve
on active duty for several months before deserting.
Methodology - Familial Relationships
Once the "analysis roster" was defined, steps were taken to
determine whether a soldier had a family relationship to another
soldier either within the same company, or within the same
regiment but in a different company.
Five categories were defined
for an individual soldier's family status:
9
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
Definitely related to another soldier in the same company
Definitely related to another soldier in a different company
of the same regiment
Potentially related to another soldier in the same company,
but cannot be definitively proven or disproven
Potentially related to another soldier in a different
company of the same regiment, but cannot be definitively
proven or disproven
Definitely not related to any other soldier in the regiment
(multiple surname in the regiment)
Definitely not related to any other soldier in the regiment
(singular surname in the regiment)
A number of tools were used in this process of classification.
The first criterion was, of course, a common surname.
Soldiers
who had a "singular" surname, i.e., one that occurred only once in
the regimental roster, were automatically assigned a status of
"6".
However, this does not necessarily mean that they were
definitely serving without the presence of family members - for
example, the author's great-great-grandfather, Private Thomas F.
Blalock of Co K of the 4th TN Cavalry, was the only Blalock in the
regiment.
However, the author is also related to two other
soldiers of the 4th TN Cavalry, including one in Co K (Private
Churchwell Brown), but since the relationship between Thomas
Blalock and Churchwell Brown cannot at this time be verified as a
close blood relationship, Private Blalock has been given a status
of "6".
10
Some soldiers of the 2nd and 4th regiments are known by the author
to be related to each other, but across-regimental relationships
have been excluded from this analysis.
Soldiers with common surnames were next examined to see whether
they enlisted together at the same time or place.
A common place
of birth, and then comparison of physical characteristics, would
further narrow the search.
Confirmation of family relationships was done primarily by
examining census records.
The 1850 Federal census for Tennessee,
which is available on CD-ROM6, was used to locate households in
which multiple soldiers may have been living together.
The 1850
census was chosen over the 1860 census for several reasons, mainly
easier accessibility, but also for the fact that the majority of
soldiers were born between 1835 and 1845, and thus in 1850 would
invariably have been children who were living in a family
household.
The "place of birth", usually listed on the muster
roll Descriptive card as a county and state, was used as the
search point for finding soldiers in the 1850 census.
When confronted with difficult questionable cases of family
relationships, for example soldiers with multiple common points
(same surname and place of origin, and similar physical
11
descriptions) who appeared as though they should have been
related, but were not found in the same household in 1850 (or who
could not be located in 1850), alternative resources were
consulted.
Those included online resources such as Genforum7
message boards and Rootsweb surname mailing lists8, or search
engines such as Google9, and were utilized in attempts to locate
sufficient information to confirm or deny a relationship.
There was significantly less success in establishing family and
demographic information for Company C of the 2nd TN Cavalry due to
the fact that the muster rolls for this company did not include
the “Descriptive Card” for many soldiers, because there was a
regimental reorganization in which dozens of soldiers were
transferred from Company L to Company C.
12
FINDINGS
Demographics
Table 1 shows a summary of demographic information for the four
companies.
TABLE 1
Summary of Demographics
2nd TN Cavalry
Co. C
Co. K
Number of soldiers
Age at enlistment
Mean
Median
Median date of enlistment
Rank (out)
Private
Corporal
Sergeant
Officers
Other
104
101
78
25.5
23.8
24.4
22.2
22
20.5
22
19
7/27/1862 10/16/1862 11/29/1862 2/25/1864
74 (71%)
10 (10%)
13 (13%)
3 (3%)
4 (3%)
Birth Location
Tennessee
50 (48%)
Bledsoe Co.
Campbell Co.
Carter Co.
11
Grainger Co.
Jefferson Co.
Knox Co.
11
Sevier Co.
Other
28
Other States
14
Unknown
40
Soldier Status
1-Definitely related/company
2-Definitely related/regiment
3-Possibly related/company
4-Possibly related/regiment
5-Definitely not related/mult. Name
6-Definitely not related/singleton
60
4th TN Cavalry
Co. C
Co K
16 (15%)
1 (1%)
22 (21%)
22 (21%)
4 (4%)
39 (38%)
13
41 (68%)
3 (5%)
11 (18%)
4( 7%)
1 (2%)
74 (73%)
11 (11%)
9 (9%)
4 (4%)
3 (3%)
59 (76%)
5 (6%)
8 (10%)
2 (3%)
4 (5%)
51 (85%)
84 (83%)
41
10
2
7
16
30
12
26
15
2
48 (62%)
15
1
1
32
23
6
23 (38%)
3 (5%)
9 (15%)
6 (10%)
2 (3%)
17 (28%)
29 (29%)
1 (1%)
9 (9%)
13 (13%)
16 (16%)
33 (32%)
19 (24%)
4 (5%)
2 (3%)
9 (12%)
11 (14%)
33 (42%)
TABLE 1
Summary of Demographics
(Continued)
2nd TN Cavalry
Co. C
Co. K
Number of soldiers
104
60
101
78
79
16
24
39
39
13
12
14
77
18
26
33
65
12
20
33
17
7
17
7
8
7
13
13
13
7
16
6
65 (62%)
12 (12%)
8 (8%)
19 (18%)
30 (50%)
11 (18%)
6 (10%)
13 (22%)
53 (52%)
8 (8%)
10 (10%)
30 (30%)
42 (54%)
4 (5%)
11 (14%)
21 (27%)
Surnames
Number of surnames
Common in Company
Singleton in Company
Singleton in Regiment
Given Names
James
John
William
Pension Application
Soldier/Invalid
Widow
Other family member
None
4th TN Cavalry
Co. C
Co K
The comparative demographics for the four analysis companies
appear to be relatively similar.
Parallel Companies C and K have
numbers of soldiers that would be expected from regimental
enlistment, with later-assembled companies (K) being less numerous
than those that were mustered earlier (C).
The median dates of
enlistment verify the sequential process of enlistment and
mustering-in, the 2nd Regiment having been assembled before the
4th.
The proportions of rank are fairly consistent across
companies, with Privates ranging from 68% (Co K, 2nd TN Cavalry) to
76% (Co K, 4th TN Cavalry).
14
Companies were generally assembled on the basis of locality, and
this is particularly noteworthy in Co K of the 2nd, sixty-eight
percent of whose members were born in Sevier County.
Company C of
the 2nd does not demonstrate any local concentration due to the
lack of demographic information for many of its soldiers.
Company
C of the 4th exhibits a strong concentration of Eastern Tennessee
citizens, as Grainger, Campbell, and Jefferson Counties are all
contiguous; they are all also very close to Cumberland Gap, at the
border of Kentucky and Tennessee, which is the location of most
Federal recruitment activity in late 1862 and early 1863, while
the state of Tennessee was still under Confederate control.10
Soldiers in Company K of the 4th came primarily from Bledsoe
County, which is located in the southeastern section of the state,
but they were not a majority of the Company.
Because Co K of the
4th was not mustered until early 1864, by which time control of
Tennessee by the Union Army was firmly established, one could
expect a less homogenous population.10
Most of the “other”
Tennessee counties represented in Co K of the 4th were from the
southeast region of the state (Hamilton, McMinn, and Marion
counties).
“Soldier Status” classification was largely dependent on knowledge
of the soldier’s place of birth, and since that information was
15
largely deficient for Co C of the 2nd TN Cavalry, it is reflected
in a decreased percentage of soldiers who were identified as
“related”.
The other three companies have fairly consistent
status ratios, with Co K of the 2nd having the largest percentage
of Status 1 or 2 individuals; this is consistent with the
homogenous nature of their common home county of Sevier Co.
Company K of the 2nd also had a lesser number of surnames, which is
an additional reflection of their common origin.
There were five
surnames with four individuals each in the Company: Andes, Carnes,
Clahough, Meridith, and Wilson, most of them unusual surnames not
among the regular common surnames such as Smith, Brown, Miller,
Russell, etc.
The three most common given names in all companies were James,
John, and William, but their ratios by company do not demonstrate
any clear pattern.
Pension application rates appear moderately consistent.
The
higher application rates for Co C 2nd TN Cavalry can probably be
attributed to their longer length of service, as demonstrated by
their earlier median date of enlistment.
The lower rate for Co K
4th TN Cavalry may be due to the shorter length of service and
their less homogenous demographics.
16
The lower rate of widow
applications for Co K 4th TN Cavalry is probably due to the younger
ages of the soldiers, making them less likely to have been
married, and thus the higher percentage of “other” survivors were
mostly mothers or fathers.
Mortality Demographics
Table 2 shows a summary of mortality and demographic information
for deceased soldiers.
TABLE 2
Summary of Demographics (Deceased Soldiers)
2nd TN Cavalry
Co. C
Co. K
Number of soldiers in Company
Number of deaths in Company
4th TN Cavalry
Co. C
Co K
104
26
60
24
101
26
78
20
26 (25%)
12/1/1863
16.5
10
24 (40%)
3/19/1863
9.3
5
26 (26%)
10/8/1864
16.1
15.5
20 (26%)
8/31/1864
6.2
4.5
4
3
3
3
2
7
4
3
1
11
1
7
1
4
1
2
5
1
12
1
1
1
2
5
8
3
Mortality
Number of deaths
Median date of death
Mean interval to death (months)
Median interval to death (months)
Cause of death
Chronic diarrhea
Chronic dysentery
Disease
Typhoid
Measles
Other
Unknown
17
TABLE 2
Summary of Demographics (Deceased Soldiers)
(Continued)
Number of soldiers in Company
Number of deaths in Company
2nd TN Cavalry
Co. C
Co. K
104
60
26
24
4th TN Cavalry
Co. C
Co K
101
78
26
20
DEMOGRAPHICS FOR DEAD SOLDIERS
Age at enlistment
Mean
Median
25.5
23
Median date of enlistment
7/27/1862
23.1
20
24
22
10/16/1862 11/19/1862
21.5
18
2/12/1864
Rank (out)
Private
Corporal
Sergeant
Officers
Other
19 (73%)
2 (8%)
4 (15%)
1 (4%)
21 (88%)
2 (8%)
1 (4%)
21 (81%)
4 (15%)
1 (4%)
19 (95%)
1 (5%)
-
18 (69%)
2
3
2
4
1
6
2
22 (92%)
19
3
2
20 (77%)
5
8
7
5
1
11 (55%)
9
Birth Location
Tennessee
Bledsoe Co.
Campbell Co.
Carter Co.
Grainger Co.
Knox Co.
Sevier Co.
Other
Other States
Unknown
Death Rate by Status
Status 1-2
Status 3-4
Status 5-6
Pension Application
Widow
Other family member
None
6
3
6/17 (35%) 11/26 (42%) 11/30 (37%) 9/23 (39%)
11/44 (25%) 5/15 (33%) 4/22 (18%) 1/11 (9%)
9/43 (21%) 8/19 (42%) 11/49 (22%) 10/44 (23%)
9 (35%)
6 (23%)
11 (42%)
18
7 (29%)
6 (25%)
11 (46%)
8 (31%)
8 (31%)
10 (38%)
2 (10%)
9 (45%)
9 (45%)
Deceased soldiers were essentially the same age at enlistment as
the general company ages, for all companies, although Co K 4th TN
Cavalry was slightly younger for the deceased soldiers.
The
median date of enlistment was identical for deceased and all
soldiers, for all companies.
There were generally more deceased
Privates than other ranks, particularly for Co K 4th TN Cavalry
(76% Privates vs. 95% deceased Privates).
The birth locations for
deceased vs. whole company were similarly distributed for all
companies.
The average interval between date of enlistment and date of death
varied dramatically.
Both Company C 2nd TN Cavalry and Company C
4tn TN Cavalry had a mean interval of 16 months, obviously due to
the much earlier enlistment times, although the median date of
death was one year different between the two companies.
Both
Company K 2nd TN Cavalry and 4th TN Cavalry had much lower mean
intervals, 9 and 6 months respectively, with Co K 2nd TN Cavalry
having the earliest mean date of death (3/19/1863).
CAUSES OF DEATH
TYPHOID
Typhoid fever was exceptionally prevalent in Co K 2nd TN Cavalry,
with eleven deaths.
Nine of those deaths occurred between January
21, 1863 and March 30, 1863.
There may also have been an
19
additional death during that interval, but it was called "typhus
fever".
The mean time interval for those nine deaths was four
months from enlistment to death.
Five of the nine (55%) were
related soldiers (status=1), two were potentially related
(status=3), and two were not related (status=6).
Seven of the
nine were from Sevier County, TN, with one from Cocke Co., and one
from Unknown.
Only one death from typhoid in Co C 2nd TN Cavalry occurred in
that pandemic period (on 2/20/1863) in a soldier from Hancock
County (which is not near to Sevier County).
Of the five deaths from typhoid in Co C 4th TN Cavalry, only one
occurred in the pandemic period (on 2/21/1863), but that soldier
died in Annapolis, Maryland following release from Confederate
captivity, whereas the other deaths of the Spring 1863 pandemic
occurred in Murfreesboro, TN.
There was a cluster of typhoid deaths in Co C 4th TN Cavalry, but
it took place later in the year (three deaths between 6/5/1863 and
7/31/1863; mean interval of 10 months between enlistment and
death).
Two soldiers were from Claiborne County, and one was from
Campbell County; none were related.
20
The two deaths from typhoid in Co K 4th TN Cavalry were
unremarkable.
One can thus conclude that soldiers from Sevier County who
enlisted in the fall of 1862 were particularly susceptible to
typhoid early in their period of service, and that most of the
deaths were among related soldiers.
MEASLES
Measles, called "rubeola" in official records, was most prevalent
in Co K 4th TN Cavalry, with five deaths.
There was a cluster of
four deaths between 3/18/1864 and 4/13/1864; three of the soldiers
were status=1, and two of them were Bledsoe County brothers, Henry
Burdette and Noah Burdette, who died on 3/30/1864 and 4/3/1864.
Another Bledsoe County soldier, Sampson Harvey, died on 4/13/1864,
and his distraught father John, who was also serving in Co K with
his son, deserted the regiment ten days later in an attempt to
return home to his remaining family.
When John Harvey returned
from desertion in early August 1864 he was held for trial, but
ended up escaping from the guardhouse in September.
While John
Harvey's desertion meant that his own application for a soldier's
invalid pension was denied, as was his widow's in 1897, he did
receive a survivor's pension for his son Sampson in 1879.
21
The single death from measles in Co C 4th Cavalry occurred on
5/17/1864, shortly after the above cluster, in a status=1 soldier
from Grainger County.
A review of the raw data for the entire regiment for 4th TN
Cavalry shows that there may have been as many as ten other cases
of measles-related deaths in other companies, in the period
between March 1864 and June 1864.
Some deaths that occurred
during that interval, which were called "disease" or "intermittent
fever", may have in fact been measles.
Deaths from measles were much less prevalent in the 2nd TN
Cavalry, Companies C and K.
Company C's two measles deaths
occurred on 12/26/1862 and 5/4/1864, and the single death in Co K
was on 2/15/1863.
22
DEATH ANALYSIS BY REGIMENTAL COMPANY
COMPANY C - 2nd TN Cavalry Deaths
The five status=1 or =2 soldiers of this company who died did not
appear to have any discernible pattern to their deaths, nor did
the other status categories.
The deaths for this company were fairly evenly distributed
throughout the War, from December 1862 to June 1865.
There were
three deaths in late December 1862 (one each measles, chronic
diarrhea, and inflammation of lungs).
The eleven deaths in 1863
occurred almost entirely between 1/31/1863 and 5/31/1863, from a
variety of causes with no trends.
Of the six deaths in 1864, five
occurred between 10/6/1864 and 11/29/1864, and involved three
cases of flux/chronic diarrhea, one death in battle, and one
soldier who died of an unknown cause in a Confederate POW camp.
The six deaths in 1865 included two of note: one accidental
gunshot (possible suicide), and a casualty of the steamboat
SULTANA explosion who died of massive burns several weeks after
the disaster.
COMPANY K - 2nd TN Cavalry Deaths
As mentioned earlier, typhoid fever was the main cause of death
for this Company.
There were no other trends of note.
23
COMPANY C - 4th TN Cavalry Deaths
The ten status=1 related deceased soldiers of this company tended
to die from chronic or acute diarrhea or dysentery (five deaths).
The eleven status=5 or =6 unrelated deceased soldiers tended to
die from more dramatic causes, including two killed in battle, and
the Captain of the Company who drowned while bathing his horse in
the Cumberland River.
Almost half the deaths occurred between 8/22/1862 and 8/8/1863,
and those generally were caused by typhoid or diarrhea.
The
eleven deaths that occurred between 10/8/1864 and 5/14/1865
included one battle-related death, but were generally caused by
assorted diseases, many of which were contracted while in
captivity in Confederate POW camps.
24
COMPANY K - 4th TN Cavalry Deaths
The deaths for this company generally occurred in one of two
clusters - either they succumbed to the measles epidemic of March
and April 1864, or else they occurred as the result of a military
disaster.
On the night of July 31, 1864, the 4th TN Cavalry,
which was taking part in McCook's Raid of the Battle of Atlanta,
was engaged outside of Newnan, Georgia by a large number of
Confederate troops who caused them to retreat back across the
Chattahoochie River at Philpott's Landing.
In the course of this
desperate retreat, dozens of soldiers and scores of their horses
drowned in the river; others were left wounded and presumed dead,
and at least a hundred more were captured and sent to
Andersonville and Cahaba POW camps.11
Three soldiers of Co K died
that night, and ten more would die before the end of the War, some
of them while incarcerated, and several more dying shortly after
being released from captivity.
The final death, on April 3, 1865
at Fort Spanish, Alabama, was a Bledsoe County soldier who had
recently been released from captivity at Andersonville, and
committed suicide.
This last death was officially classified as
an "accidental gunshot", presumably to spare his family the stigma
of suicide.
25
CONCLUSIONS
Company C of the 2nd TN Cavalry did not reveal any tendencies to
prove or disprove the hypothesis that related soldiers had a
higher death rate than unrelated ones.
This can be attributed to
a deficit in demographic data that would allow the proper
categorization of relationships between soldiers.
Company K of the 2nd TN Cavalry is somewhat of a paradox.
While
there was a demonstrable majority of related soldiers involved in
a definite disease cluster, the overall numbers state that equal
percentages of related and unrelated soldiers died.
Company C of the 4th TN Cavalry had a significantly higher
percentage of related deceased soldiers (37%) vs. unrelated
deceased soldiers (22%).
However, there were no discernible
clusters of diseases or other causes to which one could attribute
this pattern, and there were no family groups who died within a
close period of time of each other.
Company K of the 4th TN Cavalry also had a significantly higher
percentage of related deceased soldiers (39%) than unrelated
deceased soldiers (23%).
One set of brothers, Elias and Jonathan
Bradley from Cherokee County, NC died within a month of each
other, one from typhoid fever and one from “arachnitis” (possibly
26
the effects of a spider bite).
The Burdett brothers of Bledsoe
Co., TN died within days of each other from measles.
The three
Coonts brothers of Bledsoe County had their lives significantly
altered on July 31, 1864; William was killed in action, George was
captured and died of an unknown cause in early October 1864 while
imprisoned in Charleston, South Carolina, and James died of an
unknown cause in January 1865 at Camp Parole, shortly after being
released from a Confederate prison camp.
Therefore the only definite conclusions that can be reached from
this analysis are:
1)
Soldiers from Sevier County, TN were highly susceptible to
typhoid fever in early 1863.
2)
Soldiers from family groups from Bledsoe County, TN had a
tendency to either contract diseases together, or to fight
in battle in close proximity.
27
ENDNOTES
1
National Park Service. (http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/).
2
Adjutant General’s Report.
3
Compiled Service Records, microfilms M395-14 through M395-21, and M395-30 through M39538.
4
5
General Index to Pensions, microfilm series T289.
Boatner, Mark Mayo III. The Civil War Dictionary, page 75.
6
Family Tree Maker CD #451, Census Microfilm Records: Tennessee, 1850.
7
Genforum Surname Message Boards, http://www.genforum.com/
8
Rootsweb Surname Mailing Lists, http://lists.rootsweb.com/
9
Google search engine, http://www.google.com/
10
Tennessee Encyclopedia, page 168.
11
Eckel, Alexander. History of the 4th TN Cav, page 63.
28
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
Boatner, Mark Mayo III. The Civil War Dictionary. New York: McKay, 1959.
Eckel, Alexander. History of the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry: U.S.A. War of the Rebellion,
1861-1865. Tennessee: Privately Printed, 1929.
Tennessee Adjutant General. Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Tennessee, of the
Military Forces of the State, from 1861 to 1866: 2nd and 4th TN Cav (USA). Nashville:
S.C. Mercer, 1866.
Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. The Tennessee Historical Society, Nashville:
Rutledge Hill Press, 1998.
OTHER MEDIA
Family Tree Maker CD #451, Census Microfilm Records: Tennessee, 1850. Broderbund
Software, 2000.
Muster rolls. Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served in
Organizations from the State of Tennessee: Microfilm Nos. M395-13 to M395-21, and
M395-30 to M395-38. Washington: NARA.
National Park Service. Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System.
http://www.itd.nps.gov.cwss/
Pension cards. General Index to Civil War Union Pensions. Microfilm series T289.
Washington: NARA.
Genforum Surname Message Boards, http://www.genforum.com/
Google search engine, http://www.google.com/
Rootsweb Surname Mailing Lists, http://lists.rootsweb.com/
29