behind AotW

Thousands of Georgia soldiers died during the war, and at least two Georgia lawyers left the state and set up shop in Richmond, VA to help families back home collect the final pay and allowances due these men – serving as Claim Agents dealing with the bureaucracy of the Confederate government.

If you spend any time in the Compiled Service Records of Georgia troops you’ll see their names. A lot. They are H C Barrow and W A Walton.

Henry Columbus (or Clay) Barrow (1837-1918) was a 22 year old lawyer in 1860, living on the Gideon Barnes’ plantation at Zebulon, Pike County, GA along with other young, single professionals. He married in 1861.

Once in Richmond, certainly by 1862, he had a lot of business. I found these pages – Barrow’s notes about his clients or prospects, I think – in the Compiled Service Record jacket of one such client, Private James Irvin of Company A, 13th Georgia, who died of fever in Culpeper, VA in October 1862. I expect they arrived in Irvin’s file by accident, or on the backs of other documents.

William Augustus Walton (1822-1882) was admitted to the bar in 1842 and was an attorney in Augusta, GA immediately before the war, married, with 4 small children.

He represented families in claims on the CS government as early as 1862 and by March 1864 was agent for the Georgia Relief and Hospital Association in Richmond. Here’s a sample from the form used by Frances H Pool, widow of Private James J. Pool of the 13th Georgia who died, probably of kidney disease, in January 1864.

How’s this for an interesting relationship: 3 doors down from Walton in Augusta, GA in the 1860 US Census is the home of US Army Captain Lafayette McLaws. McLaws, of course, commanded a Division at Sharpsburg.

Lawyer Walton is listed as trustee for an Annie Butler living at McLaws’ address, perhaps a relative or ward of McLaws? There are no nearby Butlers in his family tree.

This fine photograph is of Swepson Whitehead Greening and, according to a pencilled note on the back, was taken in May 1860.

At that time he was a 20 year old druggist in Mansfield, De Soto Parish, Louisiana.

About a year later he enlisted in the 2nd Louisiana Infantry in New Orleans. He was detailed and left behind at Sharpsburg to tend to the regiment’s wounded, was captured and exchanged, and had later home defense service as a 2nd Lieutenant in the De Soto Militia.

This photograph was posted online by Sadie Greening Sparks in October 2000.

The Fayetteville, NC Observer of 29 September 1862 has the following casualty lists from the battle of Sharpsburg. I’m stashing them here until I get back from this weekend’s Fall Conference at the battlefield. I’ll look into each of the names then.

The whole of page 3 from which these clippings came is online from North Carolina Newspapers, from DigitalNC. Thanks to Tom DeNardo for the pointer to the list for the 3rd Infantry, which started me down this path.