Two items found: First, Odell appears on a list of Confederate wounded captured in hospital at Gettysburg, namely he is described as having a fractured femur, and was transferred to the General Hospital (known as Camp Letterman). Second, a one page biography narrated by Odell was published in the Mount Airy News of 14 October 1937 and was reprinted in Surry County soldiers in the Civil War. Some excerpts: "I was born on the edge of Stokes and Patrick Counties on Oct. 6, 1837, was living on a little farm, married and had one small child when the war broke out. ... Six or seven of us went to Danbury where we joined. Two hundred of us walked from there to High Point where we took the train to Raleigh. ... There was a gun factory at High Point where we got some muzzle loading guns. ... when we started to Gettysburg we waded the Potomac up to our necks in the water. ... It was at Gettysburg I was wounded. A minie ball struck me here on the thigh and took out two inches of bone. Feel, you can feel where the bone is gone and my leg is two inches shorter. So I've limped ever since. For several days I lay there in the rain and sun and dampness unable to move, suffered and couldn't die. I was finally removed and spent ten months in the hospital. The Gettysburg fight was my last one, and for two years after the war I could not walk. I learned to make shoes. Everybody was barefooted and I could sell all the shoes I could make. I moved down to Siloam and grew tobacco for a long time and came to Mount Airy in 1900 from Siloam. Since then I have lived around Mount Airy. No, there's nothing more I can do here. I am just waiting to be called, but those Yankees never did whip us, no they didn't, we just starved to death."