The Cemetery Families & The Civil War

As reported in a previous post, I found confirmation of the deaths of Edward and Robert Cagle at a date prior to November, 1864, in the Fannin County Probate Minutes, Book E, page 421. Thomas C. Hale’s appearance before the Court on that date is documented there. He made a report to the court on his efforts to settle the estates of Susan C. Cagle, Edward C. Cagle, and Robert Cagle, and asked to be discharged of any further duties. Knowing that these Cagle boys had died young and without descendants provided some closure, but left many unanswered questions. On the advice of a fellow researcher, I turned to Laura Douglas, Special Collections Librarian at the Emily Fowler Library in Denton. Laura was my much appreciated guide into the rich world of Civil War military records. There I found true closure for Edward and Robert Cagle.

Edward & Robert pledged themselves to fight for the Confederate States by enlisting in the 22nd Texas Cavalry on Dec. 17, 1861 in Honey Grove, Texas. Edward was 19 years old, and is described in his military records as 5’ 10” tall, with fair complexion, light hair, and grey eyes. Robert was 24 years old, 5’ 8” tall, of dark hair and complexion, but sharing with his brother the trait of grey eyes. Both listed their occupation as ‘farmer’. The young men mustered in on Jan. 13, 1862, at Fort Washita, Oklahoma. They each came with their own horse and rigging, and the value was duly noted in their records. Edward mustered in as a private and Robert as a sergeant.

The 22nd Texas Cavalry was organized under Colonel Robert. H. Taylor and included recruits from Fannin, Grayson, Collin, and other North Texas counties. In July of 1862 the 22nd joined the 31st Texas and the 34th Texas to form a cavalry brigade. The combined troops saw their first engagement on Sept. 30, 1862 at Newtonia, Missouri in a successful skirmish against Union forces. Edward, however, did not see any of this. While the military records do not supply any detail, they do document his death at home in Fannin County on March 22, 1862. Robert’s military career did not long outlast his brother’s. He also died prior to the brigade’s first action, succumbing to accident or disease on August 24, 1862, at Ft. Gibson, Okla.

After their early success at Newtonia, the troops fell back into Arkansas where illness, changes in command, and reclassification from cavalry to infantry demoralized the men. The Handbook of Texas Online states that the struggling troops fought as a “dismounted cavalry” at Prairie Grove, Arkansas on December 7, 1862, before moving to Ft. Smith in Jan., 1863, and then marching through snow to the Red River in Feb., 1863. Glory continued to elude the 22nd during the remaining years of the war. The surviving troop returned to Texas in March, 1865, where it was disbanded in May of that year.

Pages from the Fold3.com military records of Edward and Robert Cagle.

Based on this early success researching the Cagle family, I eagerly began seeking details on John Bonham’s Civil War history. His story proved more elusive. I had two references to work from. The first being a family history written by John’s granddaughter. Pine Cones and Cactus, by Eddie Gist Williams Addison (As told to Thelma Lacy), was published in 1980, at San Angelo, Texas. In it, the author states,

“My mama, Charity Josephine (called Tatty by the younger children) Bonham, was born in Arkansas on May 19, 1862.  Her mother was Penelope Edward Boone, and her father was John Bonham.  Grandma Penelope (Penny) was born in 1827 in Tennessee.  Grandpa John was born in 1817 in North Carolina.  Grandma’s parents were born in Tennessee and Grandpa’s in North Carolina.

Mama told me about living in Arkansas during Civil War days.  She remembered when Grandpa rode off to fight for the South.  She said he managed, somehow, to slip home and help with the planting in the spring and the harvesting in the fall and then make his way back to the front lines, leaving Grandma and the children and a few slaves to manage the big farm.

She remembered when he came back after the defeat of the Confederate troops, battered and beat - with nothing left to do but pull up stakes and move on to another place, another beginning.”

The problem with this recollection is that Tatty could have been no more than an infant when her father enlisted in the Confederate Army, as she was only 3 when the war ended.  It seems likely that she related family stories to her daughter, not her personal memories. In any case, the account provides an evocative glimpse of how the War affected the Bonham family.

The second reference I had was an article in The Bonham News (Vol. 44, No. 100, Ed. 1, Tuesday, April 12, 1910), found on The Portal to Texas History. In the column, Observations by the Way, Ashley Evans recounts a visit with John Bonham, stating,

“…Stopped first at John Bonham’s. He is 88 years old. He wore the grey four years and was with Shelby. At the close of the war he cast his lot with the good people of this county.”

Despite these tantalizing tidbits, I found nothing in the official military records that I could definitively attribute to ‘our’ John Bonham. I had hoped the Muster Rolls might provide a fix on when his service to the Confederacy ended, thus providing a more defined window for the migration of the family from Arkansas to Fannin County, Texas. That hope was disappointed and will have to wait for another day.

Charity Josephine (Tatty) and John Posey Gist, from Pine Cones and Cactus.

Turning to the Wilks family, I was able to find the service records of eldest son, Jefferson Wilks (the younger sons were children during the war). He was a member of the Union Army, serving in Company E of the 30th Regiment of the Iowa Infantry. He began his military career as a private and ended as a sergeant. The Regiment was mustered in on Sept., 20, 1862, and served in a number of distinguished campaigns, including the siege of Vicksburg, the battle of Lookout Mountain, and the battle of Missionary Ridge, prior to marching to the relief of Knoxville on Nov. 28, 1863. In Dec., 1863, the Regiment was assigned garrison duty in Alabama, an assignment that lasted until late spring of 1864. Jefferson Wilks died on April 10, 1864 in Claysville, Alabama at the age of 23 or 24.

Find-A-Grave provides the following information about Jefferson,

“Killed in action April 10, 1864, Claysville, Ala. … Would have been buried close to death site. Then possibly moved to a national cemetery as an unknown abt 1867.”

I have not been able to find confirmation in the military records of Jefferson dying in action. Nor have I found a record of a battle corresponding to the date and location of his death, so I have some reservations about the accuracy of this report. However, Claysville, Alabama was a strategic location due to the ferry there across the Tennessee River. It is possible that Jefferson died in a skirmish defending the ferry. It is also possible that Jefferson died of disease. Within the Regiment, eight officers and 65 enlisted men were killed in battle or mortally wounded during the course of the war. Three officers and 241 enlisted men were lost to disease (https://military.wikia.org/wiki/30th_Iowa_Volunteer_Infantry_Regiment). This sad statistic speaks volumes to the conditions the enlisted men suffered outside the immediate threat of battle.

Union Cavalry Camp, Library of Congress.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Finding Living Descendants - The Bonham Family

Shortly after our project went public with the launch of this web site, I was contacted by my friend, Nancy Vermillion, to tell me that she was related to the descendants of John & Penelope Bonham, the parents of little Louisa Bonham. It was a thrilling breakthrough after weeks of unsuccessful research. On October 14, Ginger and I met Nancy at Willow Wild and she took us on a tour of the Bonham family burials there. We started at the plot that James Bonham had purchased for himself, his late wife Elaine, and the reburial of Louisa and Charity Bonham. Elaine’s body had already been moved to the new plot from her resting place in California. The tombstone commemorating Charity and Louisa had also been relocated from the Bonham Family Cemetery though their bodies had not yet been disinterred.

James Bonham plot in Willow Wild Cemetery, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Charity & Louisa Bonham headstone and foot stones in Bonham plot in Willow Wild, to the right of the headstone of Elaine and James Bonham, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

Charity & Louisa Bonham headstone, cleaned and in its new location, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

Visit to Willow Wild Cemetery, photo by Ginger Sisco Cook.

While at Willow Wild, we also visited the burial of James Bonham’s parents, Willam A. and Marye M. Erwin Bonham. William Arthur Bonham was the son of John William Bonham Jr., and grandson of John and Penelope Bonham. Though none of the children of William and Marye currently live in Texas, Nancy mentioned that the family was planning to gather in Bonham in November for a memorial service for Elaine, Charity, and Louisa. She agreed to make introductions and try to arrange a meeting for us with them. We were very hopeful, but also mindful of the fact that the family would be here for a short time and for a specific purpose. We said goodbye to Nancy with fingers crossed.

Resting place of Marye Erwin and William Arthur Bonham in Willow Wild Cemetery, photo by Wanda Holmes Oliver.

On Nov. 3, 2018, I had the immense pleasure of meeting with the Bonham family around the dining room table at Granny Lou’s. James and John Bonham, sons of William and Marye were present, as was the widow of their brother Arthur Erwin Bonham, along with wives and cousins of their generation. The next younger generation of the family was also generously represented. We shared research, family stories, photographs, and fellowship. The family has a treasure trove of history, first compiled by William Arthur Bonham in the early 1980’s and updated by Arthur Erwin Bonham in 1992. One of those treasures, Arthur Bonham’s memories of the farm south of Bonham can be read here. The farm was near Bonham State Park. The house was built by Arthur’s father, John William Bonham Jr, son of John and Penelope Bonham, and brother of Louisa Bonham.

Photos courtesy of Janice Bonham West.

Bonham Family Farm in 1914-1915, photo courtesy of the Bonham family..

Bonham Family Farm as it appeared in 1992 during a previous family reunion, photo courtesy of the Bonham family.

Marye Erwin and William Arthur Bonham on their honeymoon in 1925, photo courtesy of the Bonham family.

The family lore shared around the table was fascinating. John Bonham was born in the early 1800’s (the family pegs the date as no later than 1820) in North Carolina, the son of David and Charlotte (aka Charity) Bonham, who had arrived in North Carolina in approximately 1810, coming from Europe as a married couple. In addition to John, their children included Sam, Bill, and an unnamed daughter. David Bonham was lost in the Seminole Wars and his body was never recovered. Sam was similarly lost near the Great Salt Lake in another, later, encounter with hostile Indians near the end of the Civil War. Curiously, there is a reference in 1832 to a Charity Bonham in a Bastardy Bond registered in New Hanover County, North Carolina, indicating that she might have had a child with no confirmed paternity or family support. Was the child truly born out of wedlock, or did this stem from the loss of her husband, and therefore her means of support? Charity’s fellow bondsmen were Joseph Eakins and Williams Moore, neither of whom can be directly related to the Bonham family, and the record provides no other details.

John and Penelope Boone Bonham came to Texas at the end of the Civil War from Mena, Arkansas by way of the Military Road. They owned several slaves, but expected to be separated from them at the first military checkpoint, and so left them behind. They chose their Fannin County destination because a sister of John Bonham was already settled here, married to a Dr. Allen.

When asked the obvious question about our namesake Alamo hero, the family says no kinship to James Butler Bonham has ever been found, though John’s wife, Penelope, was a relative of Daniel Boone.

The family history is rich and detailed, but not without its contradictions. The tombstone of the Charity Bonham buried in the Bonham Family Cemetery states a birthdate of 1812. If correct, this Charity would have been much too young to be the mother of John Bonham. Some of the family records refer to a David Bonham dying in the Gun (Gum?) Springs area. If this is correct, then he is not the David Bonham who disappeared in the Seminole Wars, but perhaps the son of that David. And if the son, perhaps the Charity born in 1812 is his wife, and a sister-in-law to John and Penelope.

Then there is what we know from public records. John & Penelope married in Stewart County, Tennessee in 1847. Their first child, Mary, was born in Tennessee in 1849. By the time their third child, Nancy, was born in 1857, they were living in Arkansas. They are recorded in the 1860 Census living in Mountain Township, Polk County, Arkansas with four children ranging in age from 2 to 13 years. John’s age is stated as 37 (placing his birth year in 1822-1823) and Penelope is listed as 30 years old. There are two other family members in the household, Saletha Bonham, a female of 64, and Mack Bonham, a young man of 18. Saletha is of an age to be John’s mother, though if she is the mother of Mack, he was born when she was in her mid-forties - less probable, but not impossible.

In the 1870 census, the family is living in Fannin County, Texas. Josephine, age 8, is listed as having been born in Arkansas. Little Louisa is not represented as she was born and died in the interval between the census years. George is 3 years old and Hesakiah is an infant. George and Hesakiah are reported as having been born in Texas. Saletha and Mack are no longer members of the household. Neither the public records or the Bonham family have any additional information on either of them. The two are a mystery, as is the whereabouts of David and Charity Bonham in 1860, how Charity came to be in Texas in December of 1864 when she died, whether David had come to Texas with her, and what their relationship was to John & Penelope. That she shares a tombstone with their baby daughter who died one month later than she is certainly an indication of a close relationship, but we can’t say with certainty what that relationship was.

Perhaps Saletha was John’s mother. If we assume that she was the wife of the lost David Bonham rather than Charity, and we further assume that the David who was the husband of Charity was another son, then some of the pieces do fit together more cleanly. But this is a web of speculation with no supporting evidence.

Then there is the reference to the sister of John married to Dr. Allen - the reason for the family choosing Fannin County for their destination. Capt. Wilson Bruce Allen, founder of Allen’s Chapel, was married to Cassipha Bonham. It was a second marriage for both of them. Cassipha was the widow of C. D. Cosner. However, neither Mr. Allen nor Mr. Cosner were doctors, and the marriage to Mr. Allen did not take place until 1880. There are references to C. D. Cosner being a merchant in Honey Grove in 1865, so it is possible that Cassipha was the sister living in Fannin County and the details have become jumbled over time. There is also a record of Sarah Bonham and James A. Wilson being married on 7/10/1861 in Fannin County. James A. Wilson was a doctor, so perhaps Sarah is the sister who anchored the family here. The marriage record stands isolated as a single fact with no corroboration.

We may be forced to “let the mystery be”, but we will always be delighted to be a part of the journey with the Bonham family.

Photo courtesy of Janice Bonham West.

Story by Wanda Holmes Oliver.