I82327: Ann BAGLEY (BEF 27 Apr 1634

Notes

"HIGGINBOTHAM, George Washington. (Private, Company “E” 3rd Alabama Cavalry) Honored at memorial service by the Southern Guard, Semmes Battery, Order of the Black Rose, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Order of the Rose and Sons of Confederate Veterans in the Hopewell Cemetery in Hopewell Louisiana. Lake Charles American Press Newspaper date December 16, 2001."

I am the last surviving grandson of Confederate Pvt. George Washington Higginbotham (3rd. Alabama Cavalry) who is buried in Hopewell Cemetery, near DeRidder, Louisiana. We made the arrangements with the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy to have the memorial placed on his grave in December, 2001.

Parts of the following information was furnished gratuitously by Earl & Nena Higginbotham, of Bruceville, Texas. I am grateful to them for this valuable information. They are great folks and among our best friends. Thanks Earl & Nena:

Pvt. George W. Higginbotham was the second son of Moses and Martha Higginbotham, born in Mobile County, Alabama on February 20, 1841. His father died when he was about 9 years old. The rest of his family eventually moved to Marion County, Mississippi, near the town of Columbia - some 65 miles to the north. The 1860 census shows him to be a mail carrier at age 19.

Confederate Service Records of Marion County, Mississippi show that George Washington Higginbotham was enlisted in the 7th. Mississippi - 46th Battalion, called "Steed's Cavalry." George's older brother, William and his younger brother, John were enlisted in the same unit at the same time - although, they were in the "Jeff Davis' Sharpshooters Unit."

No one knows for sure the reason why George changed from the 7th Mississippi to the 3rd. Alabama Cavalry. It is however, known that he sustained a very bad injury to his right leg when he was a child. The story passed down in my family was that their old home had a tree stump by the kitchen door, which was used as a step. One evening, when he was called to supper, he ran to the house, tripped and hit the edge of the stump with his right leg, ripping off a large section of skin. The injury was severe and never healed. He had trouble with it the rest of his life. We believe there is a possibility that he may have been relieved of his duty in the Mississippi Unit because of his injuries. Perhaps, by the time he enlisted in the 3rd. Alabama Cavalry, the manpower shortage was so severe, that they accepted him back into service. This is only a guess as to what happened.

On August 13, 1863, he married Hannah Elizabeth Barrow in Mobile County, Alabama, where their first two children were born. They eventually moved to Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, in about 1876 where their last four children were born. They lived at Sugartown, near DeRidder, which was in Calcasieu Parish until 1913, when Beauregard Parish was formed. All of their children grew up in that area.

My Dad, Joseph Middleton Higginbotham was born in Sugartown on May 26, 1889. He grew up there and married my mother, Ida Williams on February 16, 1913.

I still have my grandpa's handwritten Honorable Discharge from the 3rd. Alabama Cavalry. Below is a printed copy. Part of the original discharge papers have deteriorated from age and parts of it in the folds are unreadable:
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Certificate of Disability Discharge

I certify that the within named George W. Higginbotham of Capt. Jas. C. Brown .......?...... Co. E. 3rd. Alabama Cavalry - age 24 years - 5 ft. 9 inches is his height. Occupation when enlisted a farmer, born in Mobile County, Alabama. Enlisted by Capt. Jno. W. Smith, at Mobile County, Alabama on the 4th of March 1863, to serve for the war, is hereby entitled to an honorable discharge by reason of disability of long standing.
In camp near Springfield, Georgia.
December 11, 1864

(Signed) J. C. Brown, Captain, Co. E.
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Page 2

We certify that we have carefully examined Pvt. George W. Higginbotham of Co. E, 3rd. Alabama Cavalry and find him entirely unfit for any of the duties of a soldier because of a chronic ulcer upon his right leg........?.......long standing.

This man has been in service two years and the greater portion of that time an inmate of hospital. Treatment in camp and hospital has been of no avail. We therefore recommend his discharge from service.

(signed) M. W. Francis

Sen. Surgeon Hosp. Brig.

John W. Collins, Surg. 3rd.Alabama Cavalry..

After receiving his disability discharge, George refused to sign a loyalty oath to the Union, and became a temporary citizen of the State of Georgia, until the Confederate Forces finally surrendered. He then returned to his wife in Mobile.

George participated in the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia.

After the war, he became a Baptist preacher. In 1875, the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church was organized on the east side of DeRidder, Louisiana, and in the early years he served as their preacher on a quarter time basis - preaching every fourth Sunday. This Church was a considerable distance to travel in a wagon, and probably took several hours to reach the Church. No night services were held because most of the people were farmers with work to do and many of them had to travel long distances.

The first building was a small pine pole structure, but was soon replaced by a hewed-log building. These buildings were located in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery. The Church used Bundick's Creek for Baptizing, walking there and back, sometimes during the course of a regular services. Preaching usually lasted about two hours. An interesting feature of the new modern Church on Highway 171 is that the original steeple from the old building was restored and installed atop the new building.

Later, George became the regular preacher at Hopewell Baptist Church, which is located near his home. The Hopewell Church records were destroyed in a fire, and the dates he preached there is unknown.

He eventually had to have his leg amputated when he was about 64 years of age. In the fall of 1903, Doctor Singleton from Sugartown arrived in his horse drawn buggy and amputated grandpaw's leg on the front porch of their home.

I was told by one of my cousins who lived near them, who was an eyewitness to the amputation (From a distance) She said before Doctor Singleton started the operation, he ordered all of the children to "leave and show respect at what had to be done. The kids went some distance from the house, but they could hear my grandpaw's screams as his leg was removed. Of course at that time, they had no anesthesia.

Truth about The War For Southern Independence
Taken from a speech given to his troops on January 2, 1864

By Confederate Major General Patrick Cleburne

“Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late. We can give but a faint idea when we say it means the loss of all we now hold most sacred ... personal property, lands, homesteads, liberty, justice, safety, pride, manhood. It means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the War, will be impressed by all influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, our maimed veterans as fit objects for the derision, it means the crushing of Southern manhood ... to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.”

Confederate Major General Patrick Cleburne

People who know the truth about the history of the War for Southern Independence, know the war was not fought over slavery, as taught from public school books, which were written by northern historians. It was not a true "Civil War." A civil war is a war between two factions trying to take over the central government. The War of 1861-1865 was between two nations. When the Constitution was ratified, the states retained the right to secede. When the rights of the Southern States were abrogated, they exercised that privilege. After withdrawing from the Union, they formed the Confederate States of America, a separate government. The state of Massachusetts had threatened to exercise this right only a few years previously, over the admission of states from the Louisiana Territory. The war was fought for Constitutional rights. The Confederate states had no intention of taking over the government in Washington, D.C., no more than George Washington wanted to take over England.

The main issue in the war was not slavery. The North did not at first fight to free the slaves. "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with slavery in the states where it exists," said Lincoln early in the conflict. The Union Congress overwhelmingly endorsed this position in July 1861. The war had already began some three months before, on April 14, 1861. Within a year from his July proclamation however, both Lincoln and Congress decided to make emancipation of slaves in the Confederate States, a Union war policy. The Emancipation Proclamation did not prohibit slavery in some states outside of the Confederacy. Lincoln's idea of the Emancipation Proclamation, was that he thought it would start a rebellion among the black people against the Confederacy.

A precursor for a War Between the States came in 1832, when South Carolina called a convention to nullify tariff acts of Abominations." A compromise lowering the tariff was reached, averting secession and possibly war. The North favored protective tariffs for the manufacturing industry. The South, which exported agricultural products to and imported manufactured goods from Europe, favored free trade and was hurt by the tariffs. Plus, a northern-dominated Congress enacted laws similar to Britain’s Navigation Acts to protect northern shipping interests.

Shortly after Lincoln’s election, Congress passed the highly protectionist Morrill tariffs, that is when the South seceded, setting up a new government. Their constitution was nearly identical to the U.S. Constitution except that it outlawed protectionist tariffs, business handouts and mandated a two-thirds majority vote for all spending measures.

Only six percent of Southerners owned slaves, and among this six percent were 13,000 free blacks who owned slaves themselves.

Who imported the slaves from Africa? Many Southerners owned slaves; so, our section deserves its share of the blame. But, how did the slaves get here? That’s a question which, even though your histories are strangely silent, you would like to have answered. British and Dutch vessels engaged in the slave trade, and by slave trade is meant bringing them over from Africa. But, there were also American ships in the ugly business; and, though the historians have carefully steered clear of the fact, practically every one of them was owned and operated by Northerners.

The Puritans of Massachusetts not only captured their Pequot Indian neighbors and sold them into slavery in the West Indies; they also carried on a large trade in Negroes imported from over seas. In 1787, Rhode Island held first place in the traffic. Later, New York City forged to the front in the trade. Philadelphia soon found the slave-business attractive. The traders could buy a slave in Africa for a few gallons of rum and sell him in his country at a fantastic profit. So it is no mystery how they made fabulous fortunes. What did the Northern traders do with their slaves? Many were sold and used in the north, while others were sold to Southern Planters.

Lincoln himself owned slaves and so did his in-laws. Union generals Grant, Sherman and other northern generals owned and kept their slaves in the Union Army until after the war, until it finally became unlawful in northern states. If Lincoln was concerned about slavery, why didn't he prohibit it in the Union States before turning to the South.

It seems that the vast majority of our history books has ignored the truth about slavery, but has created an entirely different picture. The following was taken out of a very old history book, which was published in several volumes. It deals in part with some of the problems America was facing with the king of England immediately preceding the American Revolution. The book is entitled "The American Nation - a History" volume 8 – preliminaries of the Revolution 1763-1775 – page 250.

"The indignation of the people of Virginia was aroused by a much more serious grievance. In 1770 the king, in the interest of British merchants, issued an instruction commanding the Governor:

Upon pain of the highest displeasure, to accent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed."

In the address against this order, the House of Burgess in 1772 declared that:

"The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of inhumanity, and under its present encouragement, we have much reason to fear will endanger the very existence of your Majesty’s American dominions. We are sensible that some of your Majesty’s subjects in Great Britain may reap emoluments from this sort of traffic; but when we consider that it greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with more useful inhabitants, and may in time have the most destructive influence, we presume to hope that the interest of few will be disregarded, when placed in competition with the security and happiness of such numbers of your Majesty’s dutiful and loyal subjects."

It is very clear that the Southern People and the Confederacy were not exclusively to blame for slavery. English and Yankee slave traders, along with black slave sellers should share equal blame for slavery along with the Southern States. Most of the blacks in Africa were captured by other Blacks and sold into slavery, reportedly because they were “enemies” of the Chieftains. If that is correct, then it should be understood that the ones bought for slavery were actually saved from an even worse fate, which would probably have been death. I’m quite sure that prisoners in those days were not fed and coddled like today’s criminals in U.S. prisons.

Maurice Higginbotham
[email protected]

[108222]
Kemper Co. MS

My Southern Family

Ann BAGLEY

BEF 27 Apr 1634 - 1699

ID Number: I82327

Notes

Sources

Mary BELL

ABT 1735 - ____

ID Number: I60440

Notes

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George Washington HIGGINBOTHAM C.S.A.

20 Feb 1841 - ____

ID Number: I21744

Notes

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Sir DAVID de LINDSAY of Crawford

ABT 1170 - 1214

ID Number: I57123

Notes

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Edward MCBRIDE

1842 - ____

ID Number: I25065

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Artemas MILLET

ABT 1800 - ____

ID Number: I34348

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Ellen PENDLETON

ABT 1820 - ____

ID Number: I4279

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William Kirby ROWE Jr.

Martha SLAUGHTER

ABT 1775 - ABT 1830

ID Number: I73044

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Caroline Homoesel WATKINS

ABT 1820 - ____

ID Number: I50269

Sources