Robert,
My ancestor, Andrew Jackson CADDEL & family moved from Tuscaloosa Co.,
AL in abt 1854 on a land grant of 320 acres. He was born 5 May 1817,
Pendleton Dist., SC. His family moved to St. Clair Co., AL by 1820. He
married in 1837 and moved to Tuscaloosa Co., AL by 1847, and then to
Columbia Co., AR. In Arkansas He later was granted an additional 120
acres in a different part of the county. He had sawmills on both lands.
Andrew and his three oldest sons - Burwell Green CADDEL, James Wylie
CADDEL, Andrew Peter CADDEL all enlisted in the civil war. Andrew
Jackson was a private in Jackson's Heavy Artillery Battery, Arkansas
Artillery Regiment (according to the Washington DC National Archives).
His unit fought in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. He soon became
sick and was too weak to travel. His company left the sick and wounded
near Birmingham, AL and moved on into battle. Later Andrew J. was
captured by the Union forces. On May 7, 1862, he died of pneumonia as
a prisoner of war at the Hickory Street USA General Hospital, St. Louis,
MO.
The following story was related to me by a great aunt, Betty CADDELL
Kennemer (granddaughter of Andrew J. and Mary: "During the war there
were many times when the northern 'Yankees' would raid the southern
homes in Arkansas, looting and killing during their rampage. On one
occasion the 'Yankees' took the family horse and all their food and corn
from the previous harvest. During these raids the family would hide out
in the cane fields near the Ouachita River. The youngest daughter,
Martha Melisha Adaline, was born along the banks of the Ouachita while
the family was in hiding, three months before Andrew J. died as a POW."
"Mary tried to hold on to the land and sawmills, but apparently the
'carpet baggers' and debts took everything. It was very hard times for
any Southern families whose members fought for the Confederacy. During
the late 1860s she (along with others) packed up her six minor children
and in a covered wagon moved to Hopkins Co., TX. They settled in the
Pine Forest and Bethel communities in the eastern part of the county."
Bill Caddell