Decoration Day Memories

This being Memorial Day weekend I thought I would write about two brothers of my great grandfather James Henderson Hogan. They both died while serving in the CSA during the Civil War.

 



Ellis Hogan Death Notice

Their parents James and Elizabeth Paulk Hogan had three sons and two daughters, all born in Stewart County Georgia. My great grandfather had gotten married and moved to Taylor County Florida by the time the war started so he enlisted in the Florida Second Battalion. His younger brothers both enlisted in the CSA in Georgia.

Ellis H. Hogan was born in 1836. He married Emoline Smith on November 8, 1857 in Nashville. Georgia. They had two daughters Arcina born in 1859 and E. Harvey in 1862, the same month her father died. On August 22, 1861 Ellis enlisted as a Private in Company G, 29th Georgia Infantry Regiment at Brunswick, GA.

Claim filed by widow

Ellis Hogan's army record states he died of Pneumonia on February 7, 1862 in the Confederate hospital in Darian, Georgia. I haven't found where he was buried. The McIntosh County Georgia records that are available online are pretty humble.

 




Micajah Hogan Death Notice

His widow, Emoline Hogan applied to the Confederate Army for money due him at the time of his death, his monthly pay and the bounty for enlistment. Her claim of September 15,1863 was filed in Berrien County Georgia. Emoline died several months later and their two daughters were raised by Emoline's sister Jemima Smith Tygert and her husband William.

One of E. Harvey Hogan's granddaughters Emma Morris did a lot of research on the Hogan and Paulk family history. Even though I never met her, I was fortunate to receive a copy of her files from a relative after Emma died in 1993.

 

Micajah Hogan was born in 1845. He never married and stayed home at the beginning of the war since he was too young to enlist and both his brothers had already left. He was eighteen when he enlisted as a Private on February 5, 1864 in Company F, 46th Georgia Infantry Regiment. His regiment fought in almost daily battles from that date until June 19, 1864 when he was wounded at Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia and captured by Union troops. He was taken to a hospital in Atlanta and then shipped by train as a POW to Camp Douglas, outside of Chicago, Illinois. While in the prison camp he contracted Smallpox and died on November 25, 1864.







Over 4,000 Confederate soldiers who died at Camp Douglas were eventually buried in a mass grave after the war in the Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago. It was eventually because of a real estate deal. Camp Douglas was named for Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas who leased the government land for the POW camp.

As part of the deal they agreed to not only vacate the site but put it back as it was before. So the Confederate soldiers who had been buried there during the war had to be moved. The Confederate graves at Camp Douglas and nearby City Cemetery didn't have any markers or identification, so they decided in 1867 to put them in a large plot in Oak Woods. They call it the "Confederate Mound."


Confederate Mound