Andrew Jackson McCurry: Yankee

AJM's Gravestone

To pick up the timeline of AJM's life,  on November 18, 1862 the 39th Kentucky Mounted Infantry (Union) was organized at Peach Orchard, Kentucky and mustered in on February 16, 1863.  (AJM deserted the Confederate 37th Virginia Infantry November 24, 1862.)

April 2, 1863 AJM enrolled in the Union KY Volunteers, 39th Infantry, Company F.

June 11, 1863, he was mustered in for a three-year term as private in this unit.

September 15, 1865 AJM mustered out, still a private, at Louisville, KY.

Here is a bit about the 39th Infantry, Company F, including a photo of some of the members of Company F.  The photo is not good enough to say whether AJM is present or not although he certainly would have been quite tall compared to the other soldiers as he was 6 feet tall.  What the article doesn't say is that AJM's Union unit was involved in guerilla skirmishes of the nastiest kind with various Confederate units and sympathizers in the Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina border area.  So AJM fought with Stonewall Jackson as a Confederate in some bloody battles (although not the most bloody that Jackson commanded) and when he became a Yankee he fought bands of armed men and cavalry troops commanded by General John Hunt Morgan (Confederate).  He saw a lot of action in the Civil War.
http://www.bluegrayhistoricalgroup.org/39thktymtdinfhis.htm

On January 11, 1866 AJM married Mary Margaret Adams (age 14) in Scott County, VA.  My father said he understood AJM was a schoolteacher after the Civil War and married one of his students.  (Note that the marriage certificate my father found for the couple shows AJM's profession to be farmer.)  AJM would have been 27 at the time of their marriage, around twice her age. Five children were born-- no date, 1868, 1869, 1872 and 1874;  the last child was Daniel Boone McCurry, my paternal grandfather.

October 14, 1890 AJM's "History of Claim" states AJM filed for a military pension as a member of the 39th KY Mounted Infantry based on "alleged affliction of liver and head [heart?]...alleged rheumatism" and received $8 a month due to "rheumatism neuralgia and disease of liver."

August 10, 1896 a "Declaration for Invalid Pension"  form states AJM appeared before a justice of the peace in Union County, Tennessee to declare he was a member of the 39th KY Mounted Infantry and gives his date of service.  The application  further states AJM lived in Phebe, TN at the time of application and was 56 years old.  It says he is "partially unable to earn [a?] support by reason of Flesh [poison?] and hart trouble."  Please note the signature of A. J. McCurry X his mark.  I am not sure how a schoolteacher isn't able to sign his own name but perhaps this was related to his disability.  This form had to be filed for him to be on the pension rolls of the United States under the provision of the Act of June 27, 1890.  "Increase" is hand written at the top of the form which makes me think this was filed to increase the $8/month pension payment.

June 26, 2897 "Declaration for an Original Invalid Pension" was filed in Union County, Tennessee.  As always, this states AJM's membership in the 39th KY Mounted Infantry and his dates of service.  The personal description on the form is very interesting.  It says AJM is 57 years old, is 6 feet tall (very tall for the era), had a fair complextion, light hair and blue eyes, and was a farmer.  It goes on to give information about why the pension is claimed:  "I was nearly down for sum days before I was discharged I did not git down till [the 5?] day after I was mustard out  I got to Louisa KY, I cold not go any further for three months the doctor call the disease I had Typhoid fever".  The form notes that AJM was treated in a "private house".  I suppose this part was dictated as the handwriting is the same throughout the form.  The signature on this form is partly cut off in the photograph but it looks like it was signed Andrew J McCurry X his mark again.

The State of Kentucky's "Origin of Disability" form seems to be an affidavit from a Kentuckian who says he was First Duty Sergeant in the 39th KY Mounted Infantry in  support of AJM's disability claim.  This is very difficult to read but it appears to be filed in Floyd County, KY by James [Dingus?] age 64 who lived in [Alpharetta?], KY.  It states "Said Andrew J. McCurry came to his house a short time after he was mustered out of the service in the fall of 1865  He staid at my house about ten or fifteen days before he was able to [illegible] his jaws [illegible] and was [illegible] he could not open them he told me the fever had settled in his jaws"

Here is the muster roll for Company F of the 39th KY Mounted Infantry.  There is no First Duty Sergeant with a name similar to that on the form.  Private James Dingus seems to match.  Also note Private Hiram Morgan on the muster roll of Company F.
http://www.bluegrayhistoricalgroup.org/39thcofroster.htm

July 9, 1898 Hiram Morgan, aged 58, a resident of Bull Creek, Floyd County, KY who used the post office in Prestonsburg, KY also wrote a supporting affidavit for AJM's disability claim.  Morgan wrote: "while we were encamped at Louisa Kentucky that the claimant Andrew Mc.Curry complained of being sick and laid around in the barracks and was not able to stir about any much, and after we went to Louisville to be discharged he was still complaining, and had not improved in health, and remained in that condition up until the time was discharged.  After our discharge I have not seen him since that day."

November 3, 1901 a Department of the Interior Bureau of Pensions form asks for further details and James Dingus responded thusly:  "we were mustard out at Lousiville i returned home he staid with me 3 or 4 weeks he had a serious boil or [illegible] near the lock of his jaw he returned to Scott County VA where we both were raised saw him no more until about [4?] years ago when i made a statement in his case he left my house very weak"

February 16, 1903 - AJM dies at age 62 at his home in Union County, TN at Powell's River Ridges, and is buried in Braden Cemetery in Speedwell, Tennessee with 39th KY Mtd. Infantry, Company F information on the gravestone.  Mary Margaret dies in 1934 and is buried in the same place.

June? 11, 1902? - Mary Margaret applies for a widow's pension based on 39th KY Mtd. Infantry Union services - filed in Tennessee - date illegible.  There is more information on both AJM's and Mary Margaret's pension applications on the Facebook page for Our McCurry Family.

The photo above shows AJM's gravestone.  A Civil War amateur historian who specializes in the 37th Virginia Infantry thinks this is an official veteran's gravestone put up on veterans' graves by the U.S. Government after the Civil War.  He has seen many of them, so I expect he's right.  The stone is granite.  I know because when the above photo was taken, Dad chipped the corner of the stone very near the ground trying to chop weeds away.  I picked up the chip and have it still.  I remember Mom remarking his grandmother would have a fit if she knew he'd damaged the stone, but it was not very noticeable.

Mary Margaret Adams McCurry's gravestone

The boy in the background of the photo of AJ McCurry's grave is my dead brother Marty Boone McCurry.  He appears to be around 8-9 years old, which would date the photograph to around 1963-64.

It amazes me how accurate the story Dad got from his grandmother was and how much more I discovered when I started digging.  I am becoming skeptical as to his being a schoolteacher after the Civil War, though.  I think any schoolteacher, even of a one room school, would be able to sign unless he was disabled.




Anyone else have family stories about AJM to tell?
signed, Jane McCurry Wood

Andrew Jackson McCurry: Rebel

AJ and MM McCurry in two separate photos rephotographed together.

The best way to lay out what I found about Andrew Jackson McCurry, based on Census, courthouse, Civil War muster rolls and other records is to put it in a timeline.  So here is AJM and his life summarized by important dates.

James A. McCurry and Delilah Gilliam marry in Scott County, Virginia on June 25, 1838.  AJM is born in Greene County, Tennessee in 1839.  (I remember Dad talking about some ancestor who had a mill in Greene County, but James A. McCurry doesn't seem to be that ancestor.)  On October 8, 1856, AJM's father sold the Greene County, TN property and moves the family back to Scott County, VA, probably to a small settlement near Gate City, VA.

The 1860 Virginia Census describes the McCurry family as including James A., 53 years, blacksmith; Delilah, 40 years, housewife; William J., 21, farmhand; AJM, 19, farmhand; two younger girls and a younger boy.

On May 20, 1861, AJM and his brother William J. both joined the 37th Virginia Infantry (Confederate), Company D as privates at Estillville, VA (now Gate City, VA), enlisting for one year.  The 37th Virginia Infantry was probably organized in May 1861 in Estillville by prominent businessman Henry Clinton Wood who becomes captain of the unit and is reelected to that position in 1862.  So far, the story as my dad told it holds up except for the detail of AJM and his younger brother joining up together.  Instead, it was AJM and his older brother who joined Company D, also called the Davis Guards.  (I haven't found out why it was named that yet).

Here is a brief history of the 37th Virginia Infantry (Confederate) from a findings document at Virginia Tech:

"The 37th Virginia Infantry was organized primarily in Lee, Russell, Scott and Washington counties in the spring and summer of 1861. The regiment trained in Richmond, then spent the autumn of 1861 in the Shenandoah Valley area. In 1862, it participated in Jackson's Valley Campaign, then in the Seven Days' battles on the Virginia peninsula. At the Battle of Cedar Mountain, the regiment suffered heavy casualties. Later that fall, the regiment saw action at Antietam and was present at the Battle of Fredericksburg. The regiment also fought at both Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. In 1864, the 37th was only briefly engaged in the Battle of the Wilderness but was nearly decimated just days later at Spotsylvania Court House. The remainder of the regiment fought in several more major battles before being ordered to the defense of Petersburg in late 1864. At the time of surrender in April 1865, only 39 members of the regiment remained with the regiment."
http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaead/published/vt/viblbv00392.document

January 13, 1862 - the Bath/Romney Campaign

On February 18, 1862 both AJM and William J. re-enlist at Camp Mason and each is paid a $50 bounty.  I am not certain if Company D of the 37th Virginia Infantry participated in these battles in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign that happened just before and after the re-enlistment.  I will have to research this further by looking into each battle carefully.

March 23, 1862 - First Battle of Kernstown
http://www.civilwar.nps.gov/cwss/battles_trans.htm

AJM "on furlough (no date); present 3-4/1862" which I think means March and April, 1862

May 5, 1862 - William J. dies of disease at Staunton, Virginia. Staunton is about 2 hours south of where I live now.

AJM "At home on furlough, 15 days from 5/5/1862, AWOL, published as deserter"
Present 9-10/62 (September-October 1982?)
Deserted November 24, 1862

May 8, 1862 - Sitlington’s Hill

http://www.civilwar.nps.gov/cwss/battles_trans.htm

May 23, 1862 - Cedarville
http://www.civilwar.nps.gov/cwss/battles_trans.htm

May 25, 1862 - First Battle Winchester
http://www.civilwar.nps.gov/cwss/battles_trans.htm

In reading Civil War history, I learned that Stonewall Jackson was hated by his men as he took little thought for their health and well being.  This fits the story that AJM blamed his commander for his brother's death.  I understand that furloughs were rare under Jackson so I am not quite sure how AJM was able to leave under furlough at the start of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign.  From the records, it looks like he returned to 37th Virginia Infantry in September and October, 1862 but deserted in November of that year.  The records are not clear but it seems he was AWOL between May 20, 1862 and September, 1862 and then returned to his unit, finally deserting for good two months later.  The records are sparse and I need to find more data before I can say for certain.

But the bulk of the story my dad told me he heard from his grandmother about his grandfather holds up.

Next entry I will continue the Timeline with AJM's service as a Yankee.  I wanted to mention that the photograph above is a photo of a tintype that my brother, Mark H. McCurry, gave me.  I don't know where the original is or how Mark got ahold of it to make a copy to share. This is probably the image from which the oil painting of AJM and his wife was made.  I believe that Mark may have that oil painting. I'll ask him about the photograph and the painting.  Our father was greatly interested in family history and collected many things, most of which Mark was given by our mother in recent years.

signed, Jane McCurry Wood

Andrew Jackson McCurry: Tales Told

Painting of MM and AJ McCurry

All my life I've heard a story told by my father Hyluard McCurry about his grandfather, Andrew Jackson McCurry, in the Civil War.  Dad said his grandmother (Mary Margaret Adams McCurry) told him when he was a little boy that Andrew Jackson McCurry (AJM) and his younger brother went off to fight the Civil War for the Confederacy and the brother died.  AJM blamed his commanding officer for the death, took his brother home for burial, then deserted and joined the Yankees.

But how much of this was true? I know Mary Margaret Adams McCurry died in 1934 when my father (born June 13, 1910) was in his early twenties.  Just how much would a small boy remember of tales from so long ago?  How much was legend and how much was truth?  How accurately do I remember what Dad told me when I was in grade school?  Luckily I live in northern Virginia, a state still obsessed with the Civil War because of all the battles fought here.  Winchester, the largest town in my immediate area, changed hands at least seventy times during the battles of 1860-65.  With that much fighting, the locals remember the Civil War far more than people living in Wyoming, for example.  There are several good local museums with large local history collections, so I made time to visit Balch Library in Leesburg, VA and started researching.

The trail led me many places, both online and in local libraries.

The photograph of the oil painting above was taken by my brother Mark Hyluard McCurry.  I believe the oil painting was done from the old tintype photo we have.   The painting is in my brother's possession.  I think my mother (Imojean Childress McCurry Morris) refinished the frame.  I remember the frame as being very dark when I saw this as a child at George Washington (G.W.) McCurry's house.  But this may be a different painting than the one G.W. had.

signed, Jane McCurry Wood