Robert M. Baker

Thanks very much for the very informative reply. Yes, I had seen the link you show, but I just now noticed it included an email link to the Scott Gardner, 19th Kentucky Infantry Historian. I will send him my photo, which is really an "unofficial soldier" picture of Drayton Hale, probably taken for benefit of his mother at Christmas between the time they enlisted on 1 Nov 1861 and mustered in Jan 1862 in Harrodsburg. Of the two brothers and their brother-in-law, Drayton is the only one that survives.

Yes, my wife's Collins family is from Letcher County Kentucky, although Drayton Hale was still living in Scott County Virginia. He was the only one in Scott County who voted for Linclon, and he was appparently run out of town. (Remember, this is before secret ballot).

Drayton's younger brother Joseph Cromwell Hale died barely five months later, 13 May 1862, at Cumberland Gap, apparently of measles. He is buried in Knoxville National Cemetery, Plot 3207.

Benjamin Tivis Collins died the following year on a hospital boat on the Mississippi River above Vicksburg on 12 March 1863.

My family study is not without it's irony, as my father's family from Port Gibson Mississippi includes a Confederate veteran who served at Vicksburg. All of them, each and every one, is gone but not forgotten. I want to learn, cherish, and pass on their stories, wherever they served, Union or Confederate.

To get a little sense of how divided Letcher County and other parts of southeastern Kentucky were, I highly recommend Harry Caudill's book, 'The Mountain, the Miner, and the Lord', not strictly about the Civil War, but a collection of incredible true stories from Letcher County, with a sense of balance between yanks and rebels. And thanks for the tip on William Ely's book, 'The Big Sandy Valley'.

Thanks again,

Clay Daniels
Fort Worth, Texas
clay_1@airmail.net