Or, Subtitled, Mules, Mares, and Barbecues: Proving Claims of Loyal Union Men and Women

Miles R. Lindsey’s Southern Claims Commission File

As I noted in my previous posting, Miles R. Lindsey filed a claim with the Southern Claims Commission on 24 October 1872, stating that he had been a Unionist during the Civil War, and asking for reimbursement for property confiscated by federal troops from his farm.[1] As the guide to using Southern Claims Commission files for genealogical research at the FamilySearch wiki site states, Southern Loyalists (that is, Unionists) who qualified to file claims before this Commission in the states of the former Confederacy between 3 March 1871 and 3 March 1873 filed 22,298 claims for property losses totaling $60,258,150.44, but only 7,092 claims (32%) of these claims were approved, for reimbursements totaling $4,636,920.69. Miles’s claim was among the majority of those disallowed by the Southern Claims Commission.

The Genealogical Value and Use of Southern Claims Commission Files

As the the FamilySearch wiki guide also states, “The paper trail created by the claimants and the people who came forward to testify, for or against a claimant, provide a wealth of information about individuals living in the South during the Civil War.” In the case of claims filed in Franklin and Colbert Counties, Alabama, which were Alabama hotbeds of Union resistance to the Confederacy, these files document a large network of interconnected Loyalist families that include the Lindseys of Franklin County and relatives of theirs (e.g., members of the Sparks, Allen, and Hendricks families) as well as neighbors and intermarried families (e.g., the Dhoritys, Hesters, Hovaters, Kimbroughs, Malones, Rikards, Tubbs, and others). In her book Loyalty and Loss: Alabama’s Unionists in the Civil War and Reconstruction, historian Margaret M. Storey provides valuable information about the Unionists of Franklin and Colbert Counties and their interconnecting kinship and neighborhood networks.[2]

Another very valuable resource for studying Unionist families is historian Gary Mills’s book Southern Loyalists in the Civil War: The Southern Claims Commission.[3] Mills groups claims filed in each state geographically, so that one can see who filed claims in each county. That doesn’t tell us by any means all names of those who gave affidavits in or are mentioned in each file. That information has to be gleaned through reading the files themselves. They are slowly being digitized and indexed, and more and more of this material is coming to light for researchers, but for now, you often have to go through the digital copies — if they exist — of each person who filed a claim in a particular county to find all of the information you’re seeking.

For Franklin and Colbert Counties, a valuable resource parallel to Gary Mills’s book is a list of Southern Claims Commission files for both counties published at the Genealogy Trails website. The Franklin County list allows us to see at a glance that, in addition to Miles R. Lindsey, the following, all connected to the Lindsey family in various ways, also filed claims with the Commission from Franklin County: Lindsey Allen, Henry Rikard, Nancy Rikard, William Rikard, and Riley Sparks. In the Colbert County list, one encounters the following surnames, also all with various ties to the kinship network of the Lindseys: Gargis, Goins, Greenhill, Sparks, and Thorn.

As the FamilySearch guide to the Southern Claims Commission documents mentioned previously notes, both Ancestry and Family Search have digitized some of the Southern Claims Commission files. The FamilySearch guide provides links to the collections at both sites. As the FamilySearch guide also states,

The most effective strategy is to search all the Southern Claims Commission records for everyone living in the same Southern county as an ancestor. Any particular ancestor is unlikely to have actually applied to the Commission (only 0.2 percent of population), but he or she is more likely to have testified (2.3 percent) about an applicant, and an ancestor is even more likely to be discussed (about 10 percent) in the hundreds of answers to questions in other people’s testimony. This is an advanced, time-consuming strategy with a less than 50 percent chance of locating information about your ancestor. But you will learn about the way of life in the county where your ancestor lived, and much about relationships between his or her neighbors.

Follow this approach in studying the claim filed by Miles R. Lindsey and others in his community in Franklin County, and you quickly learn that a whole network of intermarried and blood-related families in Franklin and across the county line in Colbert (Miles lived near the county line, as we saw in our last posting) were well-known Unionists in the Civil War and testified or were named in claims cases filed by neighbors and friends. Find one name of a family member in one of these files, and you will almost always find that this name is like a single thread that, if you pull on it, will bring all the other threads of connected files to light. You’ll find a kinship-and-neighborhood network surrounding that one name, showing you whole families and neighborhoods who were almost all Unionists, assisting each other during the war, helping relatives conscripted into the Confederate Army to escape to Union states like Illinois or Kentucky, etc.

Documents in the Southern Claims Commission File of Miles R. Lindsey

When Miles R. Lindsey filed his claim at Russellville, Alabama, on 24 October 1872, he called as witnesses to testify to the truth of his claim the following men (inter alia): James R. Malone, George F. Lindsey (Miles’s son), Zachariah Hovater, and Riley Sparks. In his own affidavit given on that day, Miles states in response to questions about whether he had in any way supported the Confederacy:

I have one brother viz Robert D. Lindsey, now living in Franklin County, Alabama who was conscripted into the rebel army — and also two nephews viz: Aaron Hester and Pinckney Hester both now living in the same County and State, who went into Said army to avoid conscription — I did not furnish them or either of them with any military equipments [sic] or Clothing or money nor aid or Support them in any way while in Said Rebel Service, but did get the Said Robert D. Lindsey to leave Said Service and go north out of the Confederacy — He went to Illinois and remained there until the war was over.

Miles also testified:

After my Brother Robert D. Lindsey was Conscripted into the Confederate Service in Captain Jeremiah Daily’s Company of General Roddy’s Cavalry, he was taken to Chapel Hill in Tennessee — He was there taken Sick, and I went after him hoping to get him out of Said Service I was accompanied by his wife, I got him away from the army & placed him at a farmers house — Before return I obtained a pass to come home. It was issued by order of General Roddy, I think. It was issued by one Annanias Venable — I did not Sign or Swear to any promise or obligation to get it, or Swear or promise to bear tru [sic] faith and yield obedeince [sic] to the Confederate States, I only used the pass to return home my with Sister in law.

As Carroll L. Hughes notes in his important study entitled “Some Union Families from Franklin County, Alabama,” Phillip Roddey of the Fourth Alabama Cavalry (CSA) actively sought to recruit men in the area of Franklin County in which Miles lived to join his Confederate Army unit, and in a number of cases, pressed unwilling men into CSA service.[4] Hughes studies the kinship networks of Union families in Franklin County. As he points out, though at least 26 men from Franklin County went to Iuka/Corinth, Mississippi, in late 1862 and early 1863 and enlisted in the 64th Illinois Infantry, no one has yet done an exhaustive study of them and their obvious kinship ties — as well as their connections to Roddey’s CSA cavalry, which drew its conscripts from the very same area of Franklin County in which these Unionist families lived.

One of the families Hughes studies is the Hester family into which Miles’s brother Robert and his sister Melissa married. Robert married Martha Susan Hester, the wife named in Miles’s affidavit who went with Miles to Tennessee to urge her husband Robert D. Lindsey to desert from his CSA unit and go to Illinois to get outside Confederate territory. Melissa married William Henry Hester. The two nephews, Aaron and Pinkney Hester, mentioned in Miles’s 1872 affidavit, who joined the CSA to avoid conscription, were Melissa’s sons.

On the same day that Miles testified before the commission in 1872, his first cousin Riley Sparks, son of William Sparks and Eunice Woodruff, also testified before Richard Sharp Watkins, a prominent Unionist of Russellville who represented Franklin County in the Alabama legislature in 1849-1854 and was Franklin’s representative to the Alabama Secession Convention.[5] As Christopher McIlwain’s book Civil War Alabama notes, following the war, Thomas Peters wrote Senator Thaddeus Stevens naming prominent Union men and their counties of residence.[6] McIlwain notes that most of these men were elected as Republican candidates following the war, and were rewarded by the federal government for their loyalty. In Franklin County, Peters names Richard Sharp Watkins and William Skinner, both of whom gave testimony on behalf of Miles R. Lindsey in his Southern Claims Commission file. McIlwain also notes that, in the 1860 election, Franklin County and other north Alabama counties elected Unionist candidates — including, in Franklin County, Richard Sharp Watkins.[7] As Margaret Storey notes, Richard Sharp Watkins was one of the two “unconditional unionists” at the Alabama Secession Convention.[8]

In his testimony on behalf of Miles R. Lindsey given 24 October 1872, Riley Sparks stated,

My name is Riley Sparks, my age is 61 years — my residence is in Franklin County and State of Alabama, I am a farmer by occupation — I am a cousin of the claimant — I have no interest in his claim either directly or indirectly.

My acquaintance with the claimant commenced about 38 years ago — Said acquaintance was intimate throughout the War or Rebellion, During said Rebellion I lived within 3 miles of Claimant, and Still live within that distance — Saw claimant during the war often — I think as often as once or twice a week — Sometimes more frequently at others not so often — I conversed with claimant during Said War very often, about the War, its causes and Progress —

I was an adherent of the Union Cause and was So regarded by claimant, and as such conversed with —

The Claimant at all times during the war when conversing with me, on the Subject declared his opposition to Secession and the war — Said, it was caused by extremists and the machinations of disaffected Politicians. That he was in favor of Maintaining the Federal Union and that his Sympathies were with, and he in adherence to the cause and Government of the United States.

I know Claimaint’s Sympathies and opinions to be as Stated, by hearing him express them on many occasions, while in Conversation with me in private, and also in the presence of other Union Men — I know that with others celebrated the 4th of July 1864 and was threatened therefore by Secessionists in Franklin County, Alabama.

Claimant’s Public reputation during the war was that of a loyal Union man, and he was So regarded trusted and confided in by his loyal neighbors during its Continuance and Since.

Riley Sparks then went on to speaks of threats that had been issued in Miles R. Lindsey’s neighborhood to all Unionists, targeting not Miles in particular, but the whole network of Unionist families who were seeking to keep their men out of the Confederate Army.

On the same day in 1872, William Skinner gave testimony on Miles’s behalf, noting that he was Chancellor for the Northern Chancery Division of Alabama. Skinner stated that he had known Miles for 20 years and saw him often during the war. He himself was, he indicates, well known to be a Union man. In speaking to him, Miles consistently condemned the rebellion, saying “it was caused by Traitors and evil disposed persons — that he was a Union man and that his Sympathies were with, and he was adherent to the cause and Government of the United States.”

Skinner notes that Miles and other Unionists of his neighborhood went to the pro-Union barbecue on 4th of July 1864 mentioned by Riley Sparks, and that they did so despite threats from secessionists. Major William H. Warren of Roddey’s Confederate Cavalry was among those organizing the secessionists threatening Unionists. (Note: it was Roddey’s unit into which Miles’ brother Robert was conscripted, and which he left in Tennessee to cross over into Union territory in Illinois.) The barbecue about which Skinner gave testimony was attended by other leading Unionists of the area including members of the Tubbs, Hester, Hovater, and other families connected to the Lindseys. At this event, Enoch Sparks gave an impassioned pro-Union speech and his nephew Riley Sparks, Miles R. Lindsey’s cousin, read the Declaration of Independence.

Also giving testimony on 24 October 1872 on behalf of Miles’s claim was James R. Malone, whose son James Arthur Malone married Lydia Anthem Hester, daughter of Aaron Hester mentioned above, who was a son of William Henry Hester and Melissa Lindsey. Both the Malones and Hesters were multiply connected to the Lindseys in Franklin and Colbert Counties, Alabama, by marriage over a number of generations.

Miles R. Lindsey’s Southern Claims Commission file contains another set of affidavits given on his behalf on 4 August 1877. On that date, Nimrod T. Underwood testified that at the pro-Union barbecue held in Franklin County on 4th of July 1864, Riley Sparks had read the Declaration of Independence, and that Sparks and Martin E. Tubbs, whose niece Mary E. Tubbs, daughter of Lucien B. Tubbs, married Miles’s nephew Robert Paul Lindsey, were leading Unionists of their neighborhood in Franklin County. Lucien Tubbs’s son Samuel Lee Tubbs married Della B. Lindsey, a granddaughter of Miles.

Martin E. Tubbs himself gave testimony on Miles’s behalf on the same day, 4 August 1877. His affidavit states that he was 51 years old and farming in Colbert County. He had known Miles R. Lindsey very intimately for 25 years, living within two miles of him for 25 years and seeing him once or twice every week during the war. He and Miles had both attended the pro-Union barbecue at Duncans Creek in Franklin County on the 4th of July 1864, at which Miles “Expressed himself to be a union man and in favor of the union cause and opposed to the Confederate Government.” Tubbs names other men present: Riley Sparks, Alfred Devaney, Erwin Vinson, Charles Womble, Christopher and Clark Tompkins “and many others I cannot remember all of the union men present on that occasion but all that was present was considered union men and in favor of the union cause.”

Martin Tubbs says Miles helped to keep several men out of the CSA, and fed or harbored conscripts to keep them out of CSA service. Among other Unionsts he heard speak of Miles as a Union man were S.A. Jones, Travis Bowles, William Bowles, Wilkerson Bowen, James M. Kimbrough, William Skinner, R.S. Watkins, Jonathan Fountain, Joseph Dougherty, Clark Tompkins, Henry Tompkins, James Mills, Christopher Tompkins.

Travis Bowles’s daughter Martha Clemmie Bowles married William R. Lindsey, Miles’s oldest son. R.S. Watkins is Richard Sharp Watkins, discussed above. The Joseph Dougherty mentioned here is Joseph Dhority, who gave also gave testimony on Miles’s behalf on 4 August 1877. The Dhoritys are another family much intermarried with the Lindsey family of Franklin County, as are the Kimbroughs. William Henry Lindsey, Miles’ great-grandson, married Elsie Mae Dhority, daughter of Tom Mark Dhority and Lucy Belle Bendall, from this same Dhority family.

When Joseph Dhority testified on 24 August 1877 on behalf of Miles’ claim, he stated that he himself went to Illinois after being conscripted into the Confederate Army several times. Dhority noted that he would not have been allowed to remain in Illinois if he were not a loyal Union man.

Dhority also listed known prominent Unionists of the neighborhood, giving a number of names of people whose families connect to the Lindseys in Franklin County: Martin E. Tubbs, William Hendricks, Calvin Hovater, Robert Lindsay/Lindsey, James M. Kimbrough, Robert Hendricks, Rufus Hovater, Alexander Woodruff, Pertillor Woodruff. The Robert Lindsey named here is Miles’s brother Robert D. Lindsey. Pertillor Woodruff is Miles’s cousin Patillo Woodruff; I think Alexander is closely related to him. Robert Hendrix fits into the family of Miles’s aunt Sarah Woodruff and her husband William Hendrix. Calvin Hovater’s son Frank married Martha Jane Lindsey, granddaughter of Miles’ brother Robert D. Lindsey, who is listed as Unionist in Joseph Dhority’s list.

Martin E. Tubbs is also cited as a Unionist and potential witness in the Southern Claims Commission file of Wilkerson Carroll Bowen of Russellville, Franklin County, Alabama. James Monroe Kimbrough gave an affidavit in that file on 25 June 1877 in Colbert County, stating that he and Wilkerson lived a mile from each other in Franklin County during the war. In his testimony stating that Wilkerson C. Bowen was a Unionist in Franklin County, he states that Martin Tubbs was also a Unionist and could support the testimony. He also names members of the Goins and Rikard family as potential witnesses.

James Monroe Kimbrough was son of Goldman Kimbrough and Mary Allen, daughter of Richard Allen and Nancy Lindsey. Richard Allen and Nancy Lindsey connect to the family of Dennis Lindsey and wife Anna Woodruff through his mother’s marriage to William Lindsey Allen of that same Allen family, and also through Anna Woodruff’s aunt Elizabeth Lindsey who married John Allen.

James M. Kimbrough’s brother Marmaduke married Elizabeth Allen, and had a grandson James L. Kimbrough who had a son Henry Allen Kimbrough who m. Lona Lindsey, daughter of William Dennis Lindsey and Peachey Emeline Powell. William Dennis Lindsey was a son of Miles R. Lindsey’s brother Robert.

James Monroe Kimbrough married Adaline Goins, a daughter of Sarah A. Goins, who filed a claim with the Southern Claims Commission from Tuscumbia in Colbert County.[9] Adaline’s sister Elizabeth married Coleman Sparks. Sarah’s file further demonstrates the interconnections between leading Loyalist families of Colbert and Franklin County such as the Goins, Sparks, Kimbrough, and Bowen families, and it speaks, as other files from these counties do, of her trying to keep men from being conscripted into the CSA, and helping those who were avoiding conscription.

Tracking Interconnected Franklin County, Alabama, Unionist Families Via the 64th Illinois Infantry (Union Army)

In light of what we learn from Miles R. Lindsey’s Southern Claims Commission file about his brother Robert’s move to Illinois during the Civil War after Robert left his CSA unit in Tennessee behind, a biography of James S. Hester in A History of Southern Illinois is of great interest.[10] Smith tells us that James S. Hester was the grandson of a pioneer settler of Franklin County, Alabama, B. Hester, who built the first house in Franklin (obviously he means Frankfort), the county seat.

B. Hester is William Henry “Buck” Hester (1780-1847), who came to Alabama in 1818 from North Carolina.[11] William Henry Hester and wife Amy Malone were the parents of a younger William Henry Hester (1818-1853), who married Melissa Lindsey, a sister of Miles R. Lindsey. William Henry and Amy Malone Hester also had a daughter Sarah who married Lindsey Moore, who was in my view, though I haven’t proven this, very likely closely related to the Lindsay/Lindsey Moore who had patented land in Franklin County with Dennis Lindsey prior to 1828, and who was almost certainly related to William Moore of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, who married Hannah Woodruff.

As History of Southern Illinois’s biography of James S. Hester states, he was the son of Chesley Burch Hester, a son of William Henry “Buck” Hester. Chesley Hester (1822-1855) married Sarah Rikard, a member of another of the Franklin County, Alabama, families with Unionist sympathies during the Civil War, and another family that, like the Hesters, has had many connections to the Lindsey family of Franklin and Colbert Counties, Alabama, over the years.

According to the biography of his son James, Chesley Hester brought his family from Franklin County, Alabama, to southern Illinois in the fall of 1863 “when the Union sympathizers, to which class the Hesters belonged, were driven from the Southern states.” Chesley Hester is among the men from Franklin County who, according to historian Carroll L. Hughes (cited above) went to Mississippi in 1862 and 1863 to enlist in the 64^th Illinois Union Infantry.[12]

Margaret M. Storey’s history of Alabama Unionists during the Civil War focuses detailed attention on the Rikard family of Franklin and Colbert Counties, into which Chesley B. Hester married. As Storey notes, the patriarch of this family was William R. “Buck” Rikard (1810-1844), who moved from Newberry County, South Carolina, to Franklin County, Alabama.[13] One of “Buck” Rikard’s sons, William Pinkney Rikard (1837-1887), served in the same 64^th Illinois Infantry unit of the Union Army in which Chesley B. Hester served, before returning to Franklin County, Alabama, following the war. His son Arthur P. Rikard married Jessie Hester, daughter of William Pinkney Hester and Judith Emeline Waites. Arthur’s sister Eva Anthem Rikard married Albert Faris Hester, son of Francis Marion Hester and Mary Lucy Hendrix. William Pinkney and Francis Marion Hester were sons of William Henry Hester and Melissa Lindsey

Joseph Dhority, who gave testimony on behalf of Miles R. Lindsey in his Southern Claims Commission file, married Emily Jane, a daughter of Henry Hester Rikard, who was a grandson of William R. “Buck” Rikard. Arthur Rikard and Emily Jane Dhority Rikard are buried at the Crooked Oak Cemetery in Colbert County, where Miles R. Lindsey’s sister Amanda is buried.

As this posting has noted a number of times, citing Carroll L. Hughes, the 64^th Illinois Infantry ties together many Franklin County, Alabama, families who had Unionist ties during the Civil War. In addition to Chesley Hester, discussed previously, the following Franklin County men served in this Union Army unit during the Civil War:

1. Chapman A. Flake, who is buried in old Frankfort Cemetery, Franklin County. He was in Co. E.
2. David A. Hughes, Co. E, whose tombstone in Camp Butler National Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois, gives details of his military service. He enlisted in the 64th on 11 September 1862 at Corinth — the same day that Chesley and James Hester enlisted in the 64^th, in the same place they enlisted.
3. John B. Hughes, Co. F, who is buried at Taylor Cemetery near Frankfort, Franklin County, Alabama. His tombstone gives military information. He enlisted in the 64^th on 13 September 1862 at Corinth. He is a brother of David Hughes.
4. William M. Hughes, Co. F, who is buried at Sweeney Chapel, Savannah, Tennessee. He enlisted in the 64^th on 13 September 1862 at Corinth. He’s another brother of David and John. Two members of this same Franklin County Hughes family gave affidavits when Chesley B. Hester applied for a Union service pension. They were James C. Hughes and William W. Hughes.
5. Henry B. Davis, Co. D, who is buried at Marietta National Cemetery, Marietta, Georgia, with a tombstone giving details of his military service. He enlisted 11 September 1862 at Corinth, the same day that Chesley B. Hester and his son James enlisted in the 64^th at Corinth.
6. Henry F. Rikard, Co. A. He’s buried at Taylor Cemetery, Franklin County. He enlisted at Corinth-Iuka in August 1862. Henry filed a Southern Claims Commission claim in Franklin County, which was approved. Members of the Hughes family were witnesses in it. Henry was a brother of William Pinkney Rikard, who had two children who married grandchildren of William Henry Hester and Melissa Lindsey. The affidavit that Henry Rikard gave as he filed his Southern Claims Commission claim says that he went to Johnson County in Illinois (the same county to which Chesley Burch Hester moved his family) until the end of the Civil War, then returned to Franklin County, Alabama. Members of the Hughes family testified in Henry’s Southern Claims Commission application, stating that they were distantly related to him.
7. William Pinkney Rikard, Henry’s brother, also testified in the Southern Claims Commission file of Nancy Rikard that he enlisted in the 64^th Illinois at Corinth when his brother Henry did.

All of these men were from Franklin County, Alabama. All enlisted in the 64th Illinois Infantry (Union Army). Some of them settled in Illinois. Others returned to Franklin County following the war. The 64th Illinois Infantry is one of the strands that ties together Unionist families in Franklin County, Alabama.

In my next posting, I’ll discuss the final documents I have regarding Miles R. Lindsey, all from the latter period of his life, and will discuss his children by Jane S. Williams.

[1] Southern Claims Commission file #16521, office 51, report 8, “Barred and Disallowed Claims,” NARA M1407. See also Gary B. Mills, Southern Loyalists in the Civil War: The Southern Claims Commission (Baltimore: Geneal. Publ. Co., 2004), p. 363.

[2] Margaret M. Storey, Loyalty and Loss: Alabama’s Unionists in the Civil War and Reconstruction (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004).

[3] See supra, n. 1.

[4] Hughes first published this as an article in Journal of Muscle Shoals History 15 (1999), and then in 2001 as a monograph. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois, has a copy of the monograph and has very kindly scanned it for me.

[5] See Robert Leslie James, Distinguished Men, Women and Families of Franklin County, Alabama” (n.p., ca. 1930), pp. 77-78.

[6] Christopher McIlwain, Civil War Alabama notes (Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press, 2016), p. 121.

[7] Ibid., p. 31. See also See also “Alabama seceded 150 years ago today, BUT… there were Unionists” at Robert Moore’s Southern Unionists Chronicles website. Moore notes that both of the representatives that Franklin County sent to the state’s Secession Convention were pro-Union and voted against secession. According to Carele E. Scottm “Southerner vs. Southerner: Union Supporters Below the Mason-Dixon Line” at the Warfare History website maintained by Sovereign Media of McLean, Virginia, most of the representatives to Alabama’s secession convention from the northern tier of counties voted against secession. The most hotly pro-Union county in the state was Winston, which borders both Franklin and Lawrence Counties. Pro-Union sentiment was so strong in northern Alabama that there was talk of combining pro-Union counties with ones in Tennessee to form a state called Nickajack, which planned to secede from the Confederacy and rejoin the Union.

[8] Storey, Loyalty and Loss, pp. 30-1.

[9] Kim Ricketts and Carolyn Murray Greer have done researchers a valuable service by transcribing the documents in Sarah Goins’s Southern Claims Commission file at their Remembering the Shoals website.

[10] George Washington Smith, A History of Southern Illinois, vol. 2 (Chicago and NY: Lewis, 1912), pp. 648-9. This biography is reproduced at the Johnson County, Illinois, Genweb site.

[11] See Robert L. Williams, “William ‘Buck’ Hester Family,” at the Franklin County, Alabama, Genweb site.

[12] See Carroll L. Hughes, “Chesley B. Hester Biography and Pension Records,” at Scott and Mary Gutzge’s website for the 64^th Illinois Infantry, which provides valuable documentation of Chesley B. Hester’s life and service in the 64^th Illinois. The page is headed “Charles B. Hester Biography and Pension Records,” but every other reference to this person on this webpage refers to him as Chesley B. Hester, so the Charles tag in the header is obviously a mistake.

[13] Storey, Loyalty and Loss, pp. 1-2. Another Unionist family closely connected to the Lindseys whom Storey studies (p. 23) in her history of Alabama Loyalists is the Greenhill family. Two children of John E. Hester and Sarah Malinda Bowen married Greenhills: their son Roland Sargent Hester married Martha Jane Greenhill, and their daughter Anthem Aulena Hester married Monroe Allen Greenhill. After his death, she then married William R. Lindsey, Miles R. Lindsey’s son. Miles’s sister Melissa married John E. Hester’s brother William Henry Hester.