Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The last Confederate Son

My 3rd great grandfather William M. McCurdy filed for and received a pension for home guard duty during the Civil War. His father enlisted in the Army during the War of 1812 for which he received a pension and bounty land. William M. McCurdy has a son still living. I am pretty sure he is the only one alive that can say his father was in the Civil War and his grandfather was in the war of 1812. Pretty ironic given that the year is now 2014.

Elijah M. McCurdy enlisted in the Army in South Carolina in November or December of 1813. He enlisted for and served 5 years and was discharged December 5, 1818 from Fort St. Marks. He was born in 1793 in South Carolina and was 22 years old when he enlisted.

William M. McCurdy was born in 1849 in Santa Rosa County, Florida, the son of Elijah McCurdy and his wife Barbara Sunday. He was one of five McCurdy brothers who fought in the Civil War. Two of those brothers died in the Civil War, and the other returned injured and remain disabled for the rest of his life. While I admit after reading his packet, I doubt his service, nonetheless he was granted a pension for Civil War service by the state of Florida. His widow, his third wife Florence Morris received a pension until her death in 1971.

William M. McCurdy was the father of 28 children, and only one child remains living, William I McCurdy his youngest son, who was born in 1921. His last daughter Elma died in 2011. Many of his grandchildren, and some of his great grandchildren were older than his children, which is why we can say in 2014, there is one last son of a Confederate Veteran.

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