Week 11 – #52Ancestors
My second great-grandfather, Thomas Duvall, served in the Civil War – for just a few days. He enlisted in the 26th NC Regiment, Company A in June 1862.
T.M. Duvall filed two Soldier’s Applications for Pension, for pension benefits applicable to “indigent and disabled soldiers of the late war between the States.[1] . .”
The first application was dated 5 March 1910. The second was dated 18 April 1913. The information from both applications is consistent:
• He enlisted in June 1862, in the 26th North Carolina Regiment, Company A
• He was run over by a runaway cavalry horse
• He sustained broken ribs, hurt in “breast and stomach”, and “a general smash up”; “fracture of sternum which has left considerable deformity”
This is not the first ancestor where I have found Civil War service. However, it is the first time I have found where the soldier was not in any battles and, in fact, there is no official record of his Civil War service. Approval of the pension application took some time because of the need to track down witnesses to his military service.
Thomas Duvall is lucky to have survived this mishap, and is lucky that he avoided participating in battle, where he could have possibly been killed. My great-grandmother, Sara Duvall, was born in 1863. Had Thomas fulfilled the fully enlistment period, she would not have been born! Lucky for all of her descendants that he did not.
SOURCE:
[1] “Tennessee, Confederate Pension Applications, Soldiers and Widows, 1891-1965”, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q57B-BBQX : accessed 11 November 2022), Filed By Soldier > No. 11764-11932 >T M Duvall, 1891-1965, images 1073 to 1092 of 2215; Board of Pension Examiners, State Library and Archives, Nashville, TN.
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