Camp Nelson near Lexington, Kentucky in the Civil War

Today I attended a session on how to prepare for the release of the 1940 Census scheduled for April 2012.  It was held at the Main Branch of the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library.  While there, I scanned the shelves to see if there were any books that might provide additional insight about my Civil War ancestors.  One book immediately caught my eye because it was about Camp Nelson, Kentucky.   This camp, located near Lexington, Kentucky was an important recruiting and training camp for black soldiers who often abandoned their slave owners to sign up for service.

I was shocked to open the book to p. 105 and read this interaction between Col. John G. Eve and Lt. G.A. Hanaford:

U.S. Mil. Tel.
July 30th 1864
By Telegraph from Camp Burnside
To Lt. G.A. Hanaford

Some negroes in Govt employ here on last friday night got some arms & went out of Camp to rescue a negroe woman from her owner.  They did not find the woman or her owner & came back.  What shall I do with them.  Answer.

Camp Nelson
July 30 1864 Col. JG Eve
Camp Burnsides

If you have any balls and chains put them on the negroes and make work with them on the Severest labor you can put them at.  I do not know but it would be a good idea to (have) one of them court martialed and Shot. as an example to others.

By Order of Brig Gen SS Fry
Signed Geo A. Hanaford   Lt & A A A A G

I have nothing more to add to this post. 

Sears, Richard D.  Camp Nelson, Kentucky -- A Civil War History  Lexington, The University Press of Kentucky, 2002.

Victor Becker - Civil War 2nd Ohio Cavalry and Kentucky 7th

My Ryan cousins grew up with this sword mounted and displayed in their family room.  However, when my cousin, Mike Ryan, brought it to my attention, I had no idea who "Uncle Vic" was.  It wasn't until I systematically started comparing the names of my ancestors to rosters of Civil War soldiers serving in Ohio units that I discovered just how many of my ancestors had served.

Another thing I discovered was that the decision to serve was often a "family" decision.  As discussed earlier, two Darby brothers and their brother-in-law served.  My gg-grandfather, Charles Gross served as did his brother-in-law, "Vic." Victor was part of the Becker family that immigrated from Sarraltroff, Lorraine (Moselle), France in 1858. 

The 1860 Cincinnati City Directory lists Victor as working as a "harness maker" at 102 Main Street.  He was 18 years old.  His obvious familiarity with horses probably led to his decision to join a Cavalry unit.  He served in both Kentucky and Ohio units.  I will need to do more research before I can say with certainty what battles he participated in.  Here is a copy of his listing in the roster of Ohio Civil War veterans.  It should be noted that at times the family used the "Anglo" version of the Becker name (Baker), however, Victor began and ended his life using Becker as his surname.

Mike Ryan and Tim Jones
at Civil War Museum

According to Victor's Civil War Pension application, he was elevated to the rank of "Sergeant" and was honorably discharged with the rest of his unit at the end of the war in Nashville, Tennessee.  Here is a link to the Wikipedia page describing the unit's participation in the Civil War. 

Victor never married.  He was part of the "family" that worked together to support his sister, Rose and her children, following the death of Rose's husband, Charles. Although it appears that Victor worked at one point in the family's Stamping and Embroidery business, later census documents list Victoras a "harness maker"  once again."

Victor is one of the many Beckers and Ryans buried in St. John Cemetery in St. Bernard in an unmarked grave.  He died at the age of 85 on February 5, 1927.  At the time of his death, he was living in Mt. Adams on Carney Street and was buried from the Church of the Immaculata.

A Little Detour -- A Tribute to Col. William Haines Lytle

In the process of researching the 10th Regiment OVI, I learned about William Haines Lytle.  Col. Lytle known as "Will" by his friends was a well-known Cincinnatian.  He had been trained as an attorney and had served as a Captain in the Mexican-American War.  Upon returning home, he was elected to the state legislature and later ran for Lieutenant Governor, a race he lost by just a few hundred votes.  When the Civil War began, Col. Lytle took over the command of the 10th OVI in General Rosencran's Army.

Lytle was loved by his men and was the kind of officer who led by example.  He could always be found leading the charge.  In the Battle of Carnifex Ferry, Lytle was shot in the leg and his horse was killed.  He was returned to Cincinnati for a four-month recovery. Following his recovery and a short stint as the Commander of a Military Training Camp in Bardstown, Kentucky, Lytle returned to the field and was again wounded in the Battle of Perrysville. Lytle was captured and taken prisoner but later freed as part of a prisoner exchange.

Lytle was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteers.  He was held in such high esteem that he was awarded the Maltese Cross by fellow officers.  Eleven days later, Lytle led forces on a counterattack in the Battle of Chicamauga in Georgia.  Here he was targeted by Confederate snipers.  Mortally wounded, Lytle's body was actually guarded by a respectful Confederate contingent.  Confederate soldiers, upon learning of his death, recited poetry that had been written by Lytle around their evening campfires.

Sculpture of Lytle that is part of his grave monument.

After his body was returned to Cincinnati, his funeral was held at Christ Church on 4th Street.  The turnout was so large and the streets lined with so many people that the funeral cortege did not arrive at Spring Grove Cemetery until dusk.  Lytle was buried by moonlight. 

I hope that my gg-grandfather, Charles C. Gross, had the opportunity to know and be inspired by such a leader as William H. Lytle.

Charles Gross and the "Bloody Tinth"

Civil War Monument at Spring Grove

According to a record in Charles' Civil War Pension Index, Charles was born in Wuerttemberg, Germany and was a resident of Cincinnati for 21 years at the time of his death in 1879.  Assuming that this record is correct, Charles was born about 1842 and came to Cincinnati about 1858 at the age of 16.  By the age of 18, he had volunteered for the Civil War. 

His regiment was nicknamed the "Bloody Tinth" -- not a typo. The regiment was mainly comprised of Irish units, but there were two units made up of German-immigrants.  It is well-documented that there were numerous outbreaks of fighting between the Irish and Germans during training at Camp Dennison. By the time they left Camp Dennison under the command of William Lytle, however, they were a cohesive unit.  The entire regiment had a reputation of being fearless fighters -- thus, the "Bloody Tinth."

I'd love to know what would motivate a newly-arrived immigrant to sign up to fight a Civil War in his new country within a couple of years of arrival.  Was it a lack of jobs?  A desire for adventure?  Initially, it was a strongly-held belief that the war would be of short duration.

The unit was mustered in on June 3, 1861 for three years of service.  Soon marching orders came, and by June 24th, the unit had crossed the Ohio River and was on the march to what is now West Virginia. For a full description of the unit's activity, click here.

On September 10, 1861 the "Bloody Tinth" was part of three Brigades under the Command of General Rosencrans.  They engaged in the Battle of Carnifex Ferry.  As a family historian, I cannot establish what Charles' role may or may not have been in this battle.  The only thing I can ascertain for sure is that he was in the area.  As noted in the previous post, Charles was reported absent as early as October.  It is noted that he was left in a hospital in Charleston, West Virginia by November.  It seems as if he remained in the hospital until his unit returned to Cincinnati where he was immediately placed in the hospital, discharged, and given a Surgeon's Certificate of Disability.

Charles suffered from "Bright's Disease."  The term is no longer in use.  According to Wikipedia,

The symptoms are usually severe. Back pain, phantom testicular pain^[9][10] in males, elevated blood pressure, vomiting and fever commonly signal an attack. Edema, varying in degree from slight puffiness of the face to an accumulation of fluid sufficient to distend the whole body, and sometimes severely restricted breathing, is very common. Urine is reduced in quantity, is of dark, smoky or bloody color, and has higher levels of albumin (albuminuria). (Note: Links are not active).

All of this occurred before Charles was 20 years old.  In less than a year of volunteering to serve in the military, Charles had become chronically ill and had been discharged from the military.  But once again, my very existence was dependent on him.  So there must be more to the story.

My Family in the Civil War

Civil War Canon - James A. Ramage Civil War Museum

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

The Civil War or the War of the Rebellion began 150 years ago on April 11th, 1861 with the Battle at Ft. Sumter.  When it was over, there were approximately 620,000 casualties from death and disease.

I had always known that I had a gg-grandfather, Britton Wainright, who died of heat stroke when he was marching to meet John Hunt Morgan of Morgan's Raiders fame. I was able to get extensive documentation of the impact his death had on his family. You can read about him in this previous post.

What I didn't realize at the time was that I actually had four direct ancestors and two siblings of ancestors who served in the war -- all on the Union side. It also seemed to be a family affair. In the case of Britton Wainright, two brother-in-laws also served: Joseph Bickerdyke Darby and Robert Willis Darby. Britton's wife was Mary Elizabeth Darby. These three family members are from my paternal side.

On my maternal side, there were three additional soldiers: my gg-grandfather Charles C. Gross, his brother-in-law, Victor Becker, and Fred Wocher (from a separate branch). Fred Wocher and Victor Becker interest me because Fred lived in Covington, Kentucky and Victor, at one point, served in a Kentucky Cavalry unit. Despite Kentucky's official neutrality in the war, people owned slaves in northern Kentucky and the state was quite divided in its allegiance.

My plan is to post what I know about each of these ancestors over the next couple of weeks.  Their experiences range from no actual fighting to death (in the case of Britton).  Those who fought descend from ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, newly-arrived immigrants from Germany, and one who was born in the United States of immigrants from England.  At least in two of the cases they signed up when Cincinnati was under threat.  In sharing their stories, I hope to honor these men who stepped up to the plate in a war that still impacts our country 150 years later.

Looking Ahead to 2011

Jospeh Bickerdyke Darby *

It's Christmastime and I am definitely in the mood.  So you would think that I would want to post all things Christmas.  Yet my genealogical life for the past month has been consumed, not by Christmas, but by the Civil War.  On the face of it, that makes no sense -- so let me explain.

If you ever want to challenge your genealogical/family history skills, try to submit something to a lineage group for the appropriate genealogical society.  Since I am fortunate in having many generations of my family from both maternal and paternal lines

living in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, I am a member of both the Hamilton County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society and the Ohio Genealogical Society.  Both organizations have lineage groups that encourage you to DOCUMENT your family's history in the area and submit it for review.  I've already submitted applications and had my families accepted into the First Families of Cincinnati and Settlers and Builders lineage groups for Hamilton County.  A couple of months ago, I submitted applications for both groups' Century Families. In order to qualify, I had to "prove" that my direct ancestors lived in Cincinnati, Ohio a minimum of 100 years ago.  I have many.

The Ohio Genealogical Society also has a lineage group for those who can prove that direct ancestors, and/or their siblings, served in the Civil War.  The year 2011 marks the 150 year anniversary of the start of the Civil War.  I was surprised, when I started investigating, that I have a minimum of six ancestors who qualify for this designation.  I decided to work on submitting the documentation for three who came from the same family line -- two Darby brothers and their brother-in-law, Britton Wainright.  (I've written about Britton at length -- links to posts about Britton are listed at the end of this post).

Joseph Bickerdyke Darby is pictured above.  He came from a family of musicians.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I'll write what I know about each of them individually, but I just must postpone "War Stories" until after the holiday season.

So I've finished my application for the Civil War lineage group.  It is more than 60 pages of documentation.  I made the decision to only submit three of my six ancestors this year as I'm just running out of time.  I encourage anyone who reads this post to look at what opportunities are available through your local genealogical societies.  You'll meet wonderful people whose eyes don't glaze over at the mention of family history.  They will point you in the direction of numerous resources.  In the end, your family will benefit from the attention to detail that is necessarily a part of submitting applications for consideration.

Now -- off to enjoying my living family!

Links to posts about Britton Wainright

Britton Wainright - Part I

Britton Wainright - Part II

* I want to thank Martha Darby Rutter, gg-granddaughter of Joseph Bickerdyke Darby, who graciously sent me this picture and gave permission to post it.

Wainwrights in the United States

In earlier posts I mentioned that the Wainwrights in the United States originally spelled their last name with two "w's". One record says that it was William Wainright (father of Britton) who dropped the second "w". I also stated that William Wainright was the son of Vincent, our family's connection to the Revolutionary War.

When I first started researching our roots in the United States, there was more than one record online. I try to document any individual that I include in our family tree. This is one instance where I accepted someone else's documentation.

There are three sources of information for the family pedigree outlined above. The first is Genealogy of the Family Line of Thomas Wainwright published in 1957 by Edith Wainwright and Halstead Wainwright. The second, and most important source is correspondence I have had over the last year with Rodney Wainwright of New York. He took a copy of the above publication and compared it page by page with the documentation he had. The vast majority of information was supported. The third source was the website for the Wing Family in America, Inc. http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=mewingnut Jane Wing was the maternal grandmother of Vincent Wainwright. All of this documentation seems to agree when it comes to the basic facts. Rodney Wainwright provided me with the majority of the information listed in the pedigree, especially in the maternal lines.

It became apparent that there was a lot of documentation from the time of William Wainright back, but little existed coming forward. Even the Wing Family site only listed Britton and Eliza Ann as children of William Wainright and Ruth Wright. I have spent the last year trying to find additional children with a fair degree of success.

As near as I can tell, William Wainright and his wife Ruth Wright had seven children. There may have been more but these are the ones I have been able to document.


William (2-23-1809 to 4-23-1834) -Listed in the 1831 City Directory as William Jr., a blacksmith, in business with his brother, Vincent. The Cincinnati Daily Gazette states in a death notice that he died of small pox at the age of 25.

Ann Eliza (1-4-1813 in New York City, died 1-12 1890 in Broadwell, Ohio near Athens. Married Henry (Harry) Broadwell in 1834 and relocated to Athens, Ohio and had many children.

Vincent - (abt. 1-10-1810 to abt. 7-19-1849) Married Mahitable Morrow on May 2, 1843. They had a son, Britton in 1848. Both the father and the son died in July 1849 in the cholera epidemic. As mentioned above, Vincent was a blacksmith in business at one point with his older brother.

Britton (9-26-1819 to 7-9-1863) -- Our gg-grandfather -- plenty was written about him in earlier postings.

Rachel -- married James Lusk in 1843 in Cincinnati. James was a ship's carpenter according to one of the Census documents. Ruth Wainright was living with the Lusks in Newport, KY when she died.

John -- married Elizabeth Raney on 12-22-1836. He also died abt. July 1849 making me speculate that he, too, could have been a victim of the cholera epidemic. I have a copy of John's will written July 1, 1849 naming his wife Elizabeth and children William Henry, David R., John B., and Jane Elizabeth as beneficiaries.

Daniel -- married Prudence Grapevine on November 6, 1842 in Cincinnati. Daniel's occupation was listed as a "drayman" in several City Directories. His marriage license states that he was married by Wesley Rowe, a minister who was listed as the officiant for several of the Wainright weddings. I do not know when Daniel was born, but he may have been one of the older siblings since the City Directory for 1839-40 says that he was born in New York.


There are a couple of other candidates for Wainright siblings, but the documentation is not strong enough to include them in this list. I leave it for future researchers.


Several Wainrights and Darbys fought in the Civil War. At some point I may post what I know about our family's participation in the Civil War. The participation was not limited to men. Some other time . . .

The Darby Connection

I debated when I started this project as to whether or not I should go straight down the descendant lines (Alexander Jones to Charles Henry Jones, Charles Henry to Charles Fred, Charles Fred to John Thomas, John Thomas to me) or should I also include information on the collateral lines. I went with the latter. I'm a firm believer in not ignoring the contributions of the women that the Jones men married. So let me tell you about Mary Elizabeth Darby who was the mother of Rachel Wainright Jones (Pop's mother).

Mary Elizabeth Darby emigrated with her family from Selby, Yorkshire County, England. She was 13 years old at the time. They sailed from Liverpool and arrived in New York on March 20, 1841.

When I first started researching my family, I was really fascinated by Rachel Wainright and her father Britton -- more about him later. When you have a last name like Jones, researching can be incredibly challenging -- but then there was a unique name like Britton Wainright. I decided to "google" his name on the computer and he immediately came up in a family tree married to Mary Elizabeth Darby who came from England. In addition, there were several other previous generations listed. The family tree had been submitted by Martha Darby Rutter of Oklahoma.

I googled Martha and was able to find a phone number and called her up. What a conversation that was! When I told her who I was she went and got the family history record written by her g-grandfather, Edwin Cyrus Darby. She quoted this paragraph to me:

Father's oldest sister married a man named Wainwright. They had three children, two daughters named Ruth and Rachel and a son Thomas. He was killed in a railroad accident. Ruth married a Dr. Hutchison, had a son and daughter, then he died. The daughter was a nurse in the World War and went to France. Ruth died several years ago. Rachel married Harry Jones. They had two or three children. She died young, then he died and the children were put out in private homes. I lost track of them.

When Martha read this to me the hairs on my arms stood up. I told her that I was part of the family that her g-grandfather had lost track of. He wrote his family history about 1937, the year Alwilda died.

Her next statement was the biggest shock of the conversation. Martha said, "You know where they are buried, right?" I replied that I couldn't possibly know that, because until this conversation I didn't even know they existed. She then proceeded to tell me that many members of the Darby family were buried in the Pleasant Ridge Presbyterian Church Cemetery. Imagine my shock because I've lived in Pleasant Ridge the majority of my life and even went to kindergarten at Pleasant Ridge School, directly across the street from the cemetery. Martha told me she had come to Cincinnati and found the graves and found the church office to be very helpful. Based on her information, I was able to retrieve copies of their cemetery records. Tim and I made a visit and you can see the picture below.

I plugged the information into my Family Tree Maker program and it said that Martha and I are fourth cousins. We are related through Jonathon Darby, father of Mary Elizabeth. Martha and I have stayed in touch. She has pursued her family's genealogy for more than three decades and provided me with a lot of information. I have a copy of the Darby passenger list when they emigrated from England. I know the family was very musical and brought their instruments with them to the states. There are several members of the family who fought in the Civil War. Martha also sent me a picture of Mary Elizabeth, mother of Rachel and my gg-grandmother. She was one of many strong women from whom we are descended.

For more than eight years, Martha and I have emailed back and forth. When I became frustrated with my genealogical "brick walls", Martha was always there to suggest another approach to solving the problem. I attribute to her my love of this hobby and much of what I've learned. We always promise to meet, but so far we haven't done so. Like me, Martha is a retired teacher. We've both had our fair share of health issues -- but you can't keep a Jones/Wainright/Darby woman down.