The only record of military service of the elder Phillip M. Quattlebaum, other than his Mexican War service, is a VA marker of recent vintage at the foot of his grave, that cites his alleged service in Co. C, 48th Arkansas Cavalry. Unfortunately, it appears that the marker is just another in a long series of erroneous Civil War grave markers.

The Quattlebaums are a prominent family here in White County, Arkansas, where I live. (Just a bit of personal trivia -- many years ago, when my daughter was a little girl, we purchased a piano for her from Quattlebaum's Music Store down in Searcy.) This large extended family emigrated from Alabama to White County, Arkansas, shortly before, during and after the Civil War, but only two of them who moved here are known to have served in an Arkansas regiment -- Phillip M. and Andrew J. At least one other veteran, Oliver M., who served in an Alabama regiment, moved here shortly after the war. Phillip Marion Quattlebaum was a commonly-used name in the family back in those days, but the only one who can be verified as an Arkansas Confederate veteran is the younger Phillip M. (1840-1922). While I haven't personally looked at the man's pension record, local family researchers indicate that it includes his service in Co. D, 10th Arkansas Infantry, and contains additional information that mirrors the POW experience of Corporal Phillip M. Quattlebaum of Co. G, 48th Arkansas Mounted Infantry.

The Arkansas Confederate pension index is a must-have research resource -- I've used it for years in helping put together my database of Arkansas Confederate soldiers. Its only real drawback is that it only indicates the primary unit that the applicant served in. It took me awhile to figure that out. For example, take a veteran who served in regiment of Arkansas State Troops, then served in a Confederate volunteer regiment east of the Mississippi, then came back to Arkansas and served in a throw-together Arkansas or Missouri regiment on Price's Missouri Campaign. All of that information would be included in the recitation of the veteran's service, but if Page 1 of the application cited service in the Confederate volunteer regiment as his primary unit, that's all that would appear in the pension index. Unless you looked at the entire application, you would never guess that he had in fact served in three different regiments.

It appears to me that the VA marker at the gravesite of the elder Phillip M. Quattlebaum, which looks to be of fairly recent vintage, was the result of a careless genealogical or Civil War researcher -- the old man has the same name as a Civil War veteran, must be a Civil War veteran. If the younger Phillip M. Quattlebaum had been buried in White County, I don't think there would be any confusion, but he moved to Faulkner County after the war and is buried there -- out of sight, out of mind. I don't know what has happened to researchers in the last 20 years. So much of their work has gotten sloppy. The VA only requires proof of service for a marker. They rely on the applicant to ensure that the veteran and the family member being honored are one and the same. There are so many erroneous markers out there now, that I automatically view with suspicion any VA Civil War marker placed within the last 20 years. I'm about to the point where I think that history might be better served if the VA would just quit issuing VA markers to Civil War veterans. In far too many cases, researchers are not what they used to be. End of rant.