Memorial Day 2010 – William Carr

Memorial Day is a day of remembrance which evokes the full range of sentiment in the American soul. There are some who just see it as another day off. It is time to officially kickoff the summer with picnics, cookouts, swimming and maybe amusement park fireworks. For others it is a solemn day to remember those who would, and did, sacrifice their lives to preserve America and the freedoms we usually take for granted. I'm afraid that Memorial Day is undervalued by a generation who, as a whole, do not appreciate the gift given to them.  But many of us do remember those who served, fought and died. No matter what the motives were for those who signed up to stand on the wall, we owe them our gratitude and our deference.

I want to write about one of these today.

In 1989 I collected some family history from my grandmother. She had names and dates which stretched back into the early 1800s. This was further back than I thought we had. But to me they were just names and dates on a paper. One of her lines is the Carr family of Clearfield Co., Pennsylvania. The Carr progenitors were an early family of Rhode Island and Connecticut. As that prestigious family grew, some members of the clan drifted west and south. These Carrs became trailblazers, loggers, sawyers and finally farmers. Asahel Carr arrived in Western Pennsylvania in the early 1800s when that area was still part of the frontier. He took a wife and they had four boys and two daughters. These children worked the land and grew to have families of their own. But this generation of Carrs stayed close to each other. They had settled.

All of this I found out later. When I got the information from grandma I only had the direct line of my ancestry with no further info. I knew that Grandmother's mother was Effie Mae Carr; her father was Emory G. Carr (b. 2 Feb 1857 d. 2 Nov 1944) and his father was William Carr (b. 4 Aug 1836 d. 1865). William was one of Asahel's sons.

One of the things I noticed was Emory's age when his father, William, died. The boy was 8 years old. That is much too young to be fatherless.  I wondered how William came to die so young? Sure, life was hard back then, but still, he was in the prime of his life.  Was it an accidental death or was it something more?  Most of the locations in the genealogy notes were Clearfield County towns and villages. Except for William – his place of death just said Andersonville. The date of death, 1865, and the place, Andersonville, looked very ominous to me. Could it be what it looked like? Did my ancestor die at the infamous Andersonville Prisoner of War camp in Georgia?

I checked to see if there was any place called Andersonville or anything close to it in Clearfield or its surroundings. I came up with a little logging camp called Ansonville. Could that be where he died? Was it just a careless entry?  I also wrote to the Historical Society at Andersonville National Historic Site to see if William Carr was listed as one of the union soldiers in the cemetery there. They wrote back that they had no William Carr on the roster as one of the dead, but they had numerous unknowns in the cemetery and they would welcome the information if I discovered that my ancestor was one of the unknowns.

Over the years I have gleaned little bits here and there. I found the names of Asahel's other sons and daughters and the names of some of their spouses and children. I learned who my aunts and uncles were, the children of William Carr and Mary Jane Luzier, and when they were born. I also learned how to access archives and records. I learned what a great tool the internet is for collaborating and dispensing family history information.

But what I really learned was that these people who went before are more than just names and dates. They are real people with real stories. They had triumph and tragedy and they struggled through their lives just as we do today. And sometimes they had to make choices that were hard. This is a brief synopsis of such a time in my family.

ASAHEL and CATHERINE CARR's four sons: Benjamin, Alexander, William and Richard served in the Civil War. Only one son, Richard returned home after being wounded during Seven Days Battle, captured at Glendale June 30, 1862, and confined as prisoner at Richmond, VA. He was discharged October 24, 1862. RICHARD later served as Captain in the Spanish American War 1898-1899.

ALEXANDER, age 27, and his youngest brother, RICHARD, age 18, enlisted in the Union Army at Clearfield, PA, with Co. 'C', 34th Regiment, 5th Reserves on May 15, 1861. Neither of the two brothers was married at the time of their enlistment. Alexander was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862 and died December 31, 1862, New Year's Eve.

BENJAMIN, age 34, and WILLIAM, age 26, enlisted in the Union Army at Clearfield, PA with Co. 'E', 149th Regiment, on August 23, 1862.  The regiment was known as the "Bucktails" and each member wore a bucktail in his cap, a very Western Pennsylvanian symbol of home.  Benjamin left behind his wife, Elizabeth (nee Williams) and children: Mercy Jane age 11, Cyrus, age 8, William Sawyer age 5, Mary Savilla and John Richard, age 1. William left behind his wife Mary Jane (nee Luzier) and his children: Manlius, age 7, Emory, age 5, Ada, age 3, Amanda, age 1. A third son, William, was born 8 months following his father's enlistment. From records kept we know that Ben and Will served together the entire length of their enlistment.

Will was captured on May 5, 1864 and Ben was captured the next day, May 6, 1864 at the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia. They were imprisoned at the infamous Andersonville Prison in Georgia, where they suffered from diseases of scurvy and dysentery brought about by unsanitary conditions.  They also suffered malnutrition, and exposure to the elements. Both were paroled on or about Feb. 27, or 28, 1865 and delivered to Wilmington, NC. At Cape Fear they boarded a steamer to Annapolis, MD. Ben died at the military hospital in Annapolis March 11, 1865. Will was last seen struggling to climb the gang plank to the steamer that would have carried him towards home. He is officially listed as missing, but his cause of death is maltreatment at Andersonville Prison, GA.

The sacrifice isn't just made by the fallen. I think of Asahel and Catherine during those long nights when sleep flees due to anxiety and worry for loved ones. I imagine that terrible moment when the dreaded but anticipated news comes realizing darkest fears. I think of the wives and the children, left without husbands and fathers, forced to face the future without the companionship of their God-given but war-taken patres familias. I am moved and I am thankful for nobility, courage and determination in the human character. Yes, we do get it wrong sometimes. But we are capable of getting it, oh, so right. Sacrifice is often forgotten and reduced to a year and a place on a piece of paper. But God grant that we always retain the grace to have the humility to pause and give thanks for those who went before. Memorial Day is the day to reflect what we owe to those who gave that we might have.

SOURCE MATERIALS:
Military Records, National Archives, Washington, D.C., researched by Dena Hallock Murphy;
Personal Letters of Will and Ben Carr;
Family History Notes; Genealogical research by Dorothy Howorth
Family History Notes; Genealogical research by Shirley Hallock Evans.