Hello. Believe me when I say I do understand. If mine had been offered the opportunity to go, they might have taken it.
My own great great great grandfather, Fielding Price died in the Yankee prison in Little Rock on Feb. 1, 1865. When the war ended, two of the men taken at the same time he was, took the oath and went home.
I am the only person I have ever met who talks of the Yankee prison in Little Rock. Most folks have no idea it even existed unless they realy know Civil War history.
He crime as much as anything was that he was a brother to one of Sterling Price's Lts. and a cousin of sorts of Gen.
Price himself.
His nephew was at Camp Douglas I think it is called, the one in Chicago. He was young and strong when taken and managed to come home.
His brother-in-law was left behind at Helena, and lived in several prisons. It is known he was still alive when the war ended, but he never made it home to Arkansas. HIs widow married one of the men who was with his group at Helena after the war.
My ancestor was a member of the 1st Arkansas under Arch Dobbin which the Union forces called guerillas.
There was no way he was going to be allowed out of that prison except dead.
The smallpox killed Fielding Price, and his wife got beat out of everything she had left by a Yankee who told her he could get him out if she had some money to pay. She had no money and could not pay the taxes so they lost their home.
His family did well to even survive after the war.
So there were no galvanized Yankees in my family.