After doing research on “hundreds” of Confederate soldiers and a few Union, I have become very successful at locating the “family” information that pertains to many of them. I am now trying to ascertain the value and need for compiling the below type of information on these “forgotten heroes” of the Confederacy for a book I’ve been researching on various regiments from Mississippi.

I have done these for Union soldiers, as well, but by primary focus has been on the Southern heroes. I would also appreciate knowing if this is a service that could be offered to others. It is a very time consuming process that requires access to many sources in order to pull it all together, but I’ve even exceeded my own expectations on many occasions.

Please give me your input either here or by my email address. Thanks.

Rob Swinson
RESwinson@aol.com

P.S. for George P. - My research on the 5th Mississippi covers the time period from July 1864 to the end of the war while they were consolidated with the 3rd Battalion Mississippi Infantry (aka 45th Miss.) - the 3rd Battalion/45th Regiment has been my primary focus, and I have been very successful at locating a lot of previously unpublished primary source material that requires a lot of "digging" to get to, as you well know. (Note: The published book on the 3rd Battalion/45th Regiment was greatly lacking in this area.) While researching one of the below soldier's brother-in-laws, I decided to throw this one together as a sample since I had the information, but it's not of great importance to me. Your input, and those of others on this message board, is more important at this point!

"Confederate Soldiers Remembered"
Copyrighted 2004, Robert E. Swinson)

Bio. & Cemetery Burial for a Confederate Soldier of Co. K, 5th Regiment Mississippi Infantry:

Private William Benjamin BRANTLEY - 1842 to 1908;
Company K, 5th Regiment Mississippi Infantry, CSA.

William Benjamin BRANTLEY (aka N. B. Brantly at CWSS) was born 5 February 1842 in Harris County, Georgia. He was the fifth child of fifteen children born to Harris BRANTLEY and Charity Cody HARDIN, who were also born in Georgia on 4 November 1812 and about 1816, respectively. Harris BRANTLEY moved his family to Neshoba County, Mississippi during the early 1850's; probably with a group of fifteen families who relocated to the area of Leake and Neshoba County, Mississippi in 1853 from Marion County, Georgia where Harris and his older brother, Jones BRANTLEY, had resided in the early 1830's. William Benjamin was a farmer near Laurel Hill in Neshoba County with his father and younger brother, Columbus, prior to the Civil War.

Enlisted in the CSA as a Private in Company K, 5th Regiment Mississippi Infantry, and served with four Williams brother who had all enlisted in Co. K, 5th Regiment Mississippi Infantry in order to be together. Organized in the spring of 1861, the regiment took an active part in the Battles of Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and the Atlanta Campaign. Immediately after the Battle of Atlanta, the regiment was consolidated with the 3rd Battalion Mississippi Infantry on 24 July 1864 due to troop loses. After Jonesboro, they participated in Hood’s disastrous Tennessee Campaign, before moving into the Carolinas. Only a remnant of the original regiment surrendered on 26 April 1865. William Benjamin BRANTLEY and three of the four WILLIAMS survived the war; one of the Williams having lost his life at the bloody and costly Battle of Franklin.

Following the Civil War William Benjamin BRANTLEY married Pearcy (aka Percy) Martha "Mattie" Rebecca WILLIAMS on 10 December 1866 in Leake Co., Mississippi, where she and her family resided. She was the younger sister of the four WILLIAMS brothers; the same ones who had experienced with William Benjamin many tragedies of the war, including cold and damp nights, shortages of rations and clothing, tiring long marches, often in mud, and the stench of death, to name but a few.

Sometime after the war, William Benjamin became a Baptist preacher and moved around a lot. Five children were born to this union in Nesoba County, then the family moved to nearby Scott County, Mississippi where a sixth child was born in 1876. Shortly thereafter the family moved to Texas, settling in McLennan County, where four more children where born between 1877 and 1885. After returning to Leake Co., Mississippi, the last two of their twelve children were born in 1888 and 1892.

Sometime after 1892 William Benjamin purchased property in eastern New Mexico located near St. Vrain in Curry County, and this is where he died on 6 February 1908. William Benjamin BRANTLEY was buried 7 miles west of Clovis New Mexico on Highway 60 & 84 at the Blacktower Cemetery. Apparently there is no marker, but cemetery records of Sted-Todd Funeral Home indicate he was buried there in a black coffin 6'3" long on 7 February 1908.

Mattie (HARDIN) BRANTLEY retained ownership of the New Mexico property following William Benjamin’s death, then moved again to Scott County, Mississippi by 1922, thence Ada and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mattie filed for and received a pension while living in Scott County, and continued to receive it after moving to Ada and Oklahoma City. She passed away in Oklahoma just 21 days shy of her 90th birthday, on 4 May 1940, and was buried in the Rosedale Cemetery at Ada, which is in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma.