E7 wrote:sarge wrote:I wonder if they ever saw each other, both being in the same battles.
That possibility would have made for very interesting circumstances!I assume they both survived the war?
Rich
They did, although William was wounded once. He apparently recovered fully, for he went back to active campaigning. Since he is a direct ancestor, its good from my point of view he survived nicely.
His brother George went back north after the war and settled in a quiet hollow in the Berkshires where no-one knew him or asked him any questions, married and raised a family. We don't know much about his time in the South, for he wasn't very forthcoming apparently and the family genealogist tried to downplay and backpeddle the whole thing. Too bad, as it would have been an even more interesting bit of family lore if more was known.
It isn't clear to me he wasn't following his English roots rather than his American ones, but the only story we have is what constituted an embarrassed admission by the American side of the family. Anyway, it does lend credence to the brother-versus-brother cliche so often used to describe that war.
