My Great Grandfathers (4)

   I have no desire in this document to debate the issues of the American Civil War. It is rather my purpose to share my ancestors participation in America's greatest war that would define this nation's future and how that war impacted the families.

Without judging the motivation for which a person would leave home and family and risk suffering the 'ultimate sacrifice', I honor their bravery and willingness to do so.

     Over the last few years I have (finally) become interested in my family history. My mother had done a great deal of pre-computer research on the Morgan side of the family and also knew many details about her paternal Hutchison ancestry . When we moved to Texas we were reasonably close to where the Hutchison clan migrated after the Civil War. Using the Church of the Later Day Saint's genealogical site and Texas resources I was able to flesh out my Hutchison ancestry. Since then I have joined Ancestry.com and greatly expanded my family tree! With the 150 anniversary of the American Civil War I decided to research specifically my great grandfathers' participation in the war.

      My great grandfather Rufus Grandville Morgan from Pulaski County, Virginia, was 21 on the eave of the Civil War. While many young persons, including two of my great grandparents, were anxious to answer the call to serve their country in the war, Rufus was apparently reluctant to do so. He instead married and started a family! Either because of the possibility of being drafted (and not being able to choose where he would be sent) or because a Union army was set to invade Pulaski County,  twelve days after the birth of his second son in February 1864, he enlisted in the Virginia Botetourt Light Artillery Battery.  The Battery was assigned to defend the New River bridge of the Virginia-Tennessee Railroad which was just a few miles from his home. He served for the remainder of the war.  

     There were no family stories of my father's grandfather, my great grandfather John Franklin Lackey from Rockbridge County, Virginia, having fought in the Civil War. It turns out that his story was indeed dramatic! He was drafted into a Virginia Infantry Regiment in March 1862 at the age of 35. He was called home in November 1862 because his wife and all three children had died of diphtheria. In Jan 1863 he enlisted in a Virginia Calvary unit. He remarried in November 1863 and served for the Confederacy until 1865.

 I knew because of a family story that my great grandfather Thomas Hutchison fought for the Confederate States. Living near Atlanta, Georgia, at age 16 he volunteered at the beginning of the war and served in Stonewall Jackson's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, for three and a half years till wounded and sent home.

 Again from a family story it was known that my great grandfather James Polk Roth fought for the United States. Living in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, he joined the 107th Pennsylvania Infantry of the Army of the Potomac and served for three and a half years to the end of the war. There was a family story that after the war when my grandmother Anna Roth and my grandfather Harvey Hutchison were married, the two veterans met and remembered meeting between the lines one night at Gettysburg! I had been skeptical of this story but my research shows that they were both at the Battle of Gettysburg and, since it was not uncommon for the opposing sides to interact in between battles, it was indeed possible!