I have known quite a bit about the life of my great-grandmother Mary Houston Berry (my mother’s mother’s mother). She lived in Ashland, Kentucky just across the Ohio River from Ohio and close to West Virginia on the east and Indiana on the west. She was one of four children; she had a younger sister and two younger brothers Amon and Jimmy. All I can recall from family lore was that Amon became a Union soldier and Jimmy a Confederate soldier, and their home was left alone by both sides. The records that I have found were sketchy and sparse, but enough to outline the brother’s parts in the Civil War.
Amon was born in late 1843 and Jimmy in 1846, so they were both teenagers when the war started. Amon was the first to enlist, as a private in the 5th Independent Battery, Ohio Light Artillery. I have not found his enlistment papers but he may have enlisted as early as September 1861 at Cincinnati. He mustered out at Little Rock, Arkansas on July 31, 1865. The 5th Ohio was known as Hickenlooper’s Battery - Captain Andrew Hickenlooper was a highly regarded officer who was promoted to Brigadier General by the end of the war. Certainly the artillery pieces must have varied from time to time but at one point the 5th Ohio had four 6 pound rifled guns and two 6 pound smooth bore guns. The 5th Ohio fought at Shiloh, Corinth, the siege of Vicksburg and finally at Little Rock.
Amon never married. He appeared on the tax list for Ashland in 1865, and evidently moved to western Kentucky along with his father, sister and her family but then died in 1870 at the age of 27. I can find no record of the cause of his death, but I find it easy to believe that his health was ruined by his part in the war. After the fighting at Little Rock the 5th Ohio reported that a total of 41 men died; only 5 were killed in action and the rest from disease.
Sometime during the last year of the war Jimmy Berry was 18 and enlisted as a private in the militia battery of artillery commanded by the confederate LT James Schoolfield, CSA. On June 11, 1864 this militia officially merged into Co A, 7th Battalion Mounted Infantry Kentucky Volunteers. They operated around Luray, VA and then fought in the first battle at Saltville, VA in early October when the Union forces were repulsed. This battle was notorious in that Confederates shot to death a number of wounded and captured Union soldiers, both black and white. In the second battle at Saltville in late December the Union forces routed the Confederates and destroyed the salt works which were vital to food preservation and curing leather. After Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox, Jimmy’s brigade surrendered at Mount Sterling, Kentucky on April 30 and they were paroled to their homes on May 10, 1865. Jimmy was 19.
Jimmy’s full name was James Thomas Lewis Berry. I have found no records of what he did immediately after the war, but it was most likely that he was back in Ashland when his older sister Mary was married to another Confederate soldier (my great-grandfather) on July 5, 1866. A couple of years later (Jan 3, 1869) Jimmy married Nancy Marshall Clarke in Evansville, Indiana. Nancy had been born in Morganfield, KY where some of Jimmy’s family had recently moved, and perhaps that is how they met. Jimmy and Nancy had six children but he died in 1880 at the age of 34. I have found no cause of his death.
Jimmy’s daughter Frances (Fanny) was born in 1875 and was very interested in Jimmy’s civil war experiences; Fanny wanted to join the Daughters of the Confederacy. She probably had no written record of his service so she wrote to her aunt Mary (my great-grandmother) for information and guidance. I have a copy of a letter dated April 4, 1908 in which Mary wrote back to Fanny with names and addresses of a couple of confederate soldiers who knew Jimmy and would be happy to share with Fanny what they remembered about Jimmy. Mary was clearly supportive of Fanny’s quest to join Daughters of the Confederacy, but she indicated that she had no desire to join that group (or any other). The three soldiers that Mary loved were all gone: Her brother the Union soldier had died in 1870, her brother the Confederate soldier had died in 1880, and her husband the Confederate soldier had died in 1904. A large part of her heart must have died with them.
