I went today, with my father, step-mother, and grandmother to a ceremony held by the Milam County Genealogical Society and the Milam County Historical Commission. It was in 5 separate graveyards, for 6 different confederate veterans.
The one we attended was in Pin Oak Cemetery near Gause and Milano. It included a confederate battle flag and singing of Dixie but there was not much grandiose bolstering of the Confederacy. And the main ceremony leader made a case for not forgetting history.
There was also a re-enactor dressed in frontier like clothes who brought a vintage cannon that was fired afterward.
Most of the people were of the surrounding area and there was a peppering of unique characters among them. One seemed to know the entirety of history of the local area and would speak at length with no given direction to where his recollections might meander.
We were there because John Henry Alley, First Sergeant, Company E, 4th Texas Cavalry (Milam County Guards – Captain Charles Buckholt’s Company, 1st Regimen, Sibley’s Brigade, Texas Mounted Volunteers) was having a marker dedicated. He was buried in the cemetery, but most of the markers have been lost. There were over half a dozen other CSA grave markers there.
Apparently John H Alley was taken POW in Albequerque, confined at Camp Douglas in Chicago, and released in Vicksburg (Miss) – from mid April to mid Sept 1862.
John Henry Alley, b 27 Nov 1829, in Alabama or Mississippi
married
Marry Elizabeth Stewart
they begat
Martha Bowlin Euzene “Mattie” Alley
who married
John Wesley Lantrip
they begat
Jonnie Lantrip, b 19 Dec 1888, Liberty (Milam County) Tx
who married
Sam Nicholson, b 14 Jan 1888, Rice (Milam County) Tx
they begat
Emily Nell Nicholson, b 19 Oct 1916, Cameron (Milam County) Tx
who married
Charles Weldon Shirley, b 29 Dec 1906, Cushing Tx
they begat
Charles Weldon Shirley, Jr., b 14 Oct 1940, Houston Tx
who married
Sue Ann Lebel, b 23 Oct 1942, Dallas Tx
who begat
ME – Charles William Shirley, b 1 Aug 1967, Ceiba PR
and so I went to this marker dedication for one (of 16) of my great, great, great, grandfathers
-b