That's an interesting story and similar to many of the complex and difficult to unravel "finds" that many serious CW historians and genealogists have made.

I thought about NOT posting the "Volney Willoughby Found!!!" message on this site, but then it occurred to me, that much of my personal connection with Arkansas is related to Volney's death in the fields of North Georgia. Also, the general encouragement for other family/soldier researchers I think is "on topic" and the part "Grandpa Volney" played in the formation of these message boards is important and interesting.

For me personally, Volney's death and that of his oldest son, Monroe, created a "shattered" family of a middle-aged widow with four teenage and adolescent daughters, as well as, a small son. I know from family letters and stories that this family was literally starving to death and required the assistance of a Unionist brother in Chattanooga to retrieve and care for them. The widow, Melinda Masterson Willoughby, became a ward of her brothers and later her daughter's families. She relocated in the company of two (2) son-in-laws and her daughters and small son to Caulksville in Logan County, Arkansas. One can only wonder, if Volney or Monroe might have survived the war, that this part of my family may have never moved from North Alabama to Western Arkansas. Like so many, especially Southern families, we even today, are deeply effected by "the War" and its consequences to the extent that the estates and homes were destroyed and fortunes lost, requiring relocation and a "new start" for many.

The events in a field in North Georgia, 150 years ago, cause me to call Oklahoma my family's home state, instead perhaps, Alabama.

Jim