Ancestry Magazine

James R. Vanderpool, my ancestor, was just a blacksmith in the Ozark Mountains of Newton County, Arkansas, when the Civil War erupted. He became a Mountain Federal—a group of men who chose to serve on the Union side. Loyalties, however, were greatly divided in Newton County: popular men, including his neighbor John Cecil, who had served two terms as sheriff, joined the Confederate army.

Eventually, only women and children and very old men were left in the county, and each became prey for scattered bands of guerrillas whom a county historian called “low-down skunks who preferred to live by robbing, killing and plundering the helpless women and children rather than serve in either army.”

During the latter part of the war, living conditions for these women and children became so bad that Captain John McCoy secured permission to take a wagon train of them to Missouri. My ancestor, then Captain James R. Vanderpool, assisted McCoy’s company as they escorted 20 wagons over some rough mountain terrain. Along the way, however, McCoy became pinned under his own horse, broke five ribs, and was confined to a bed on one of the wagons. The leadership then fell to James.

As the oxen-driven wagon train passed some fine plantation homes, a woman came out cursing each and every one of them, calling them names, and saying that a “rebel army was in their path” and that “every [expletive] one of them would be killed and their women and children would be sleeping in tents in less than a week.”

James and his caravan camped on the bank of a river that night. A short time later, steers belonging to the rebel woman came near their tents and began bellowing. James ordered his men to shoot the steers. His reasoning? “No damn rebel steers” would bawl at his oxen.

A real hero, I thought. But ancestral pride was dashed when I discovered a U.S. military telegraph dated 22 July 1865 from Fort Smith, Arkansas. According to the sender of the telegraph, “I have received the charges against Captain Vanderpool and your order to have him tried by court martial.”

Captain James R. Vanderpool was later exonerated and released from arrest and served out his time in the army. While his military and pension files are rich in genealogical details, I learned that it also takes history—written by others—to paint truly accurate pictures.

And, incidentally, just how complicated can a family’s history get? I discovered Captain Vanderpool (Union) was actually a shirttail relative of Captain Cecil (Confederate). Captain Vanderpool’s father-in-law, William C. Henderson, married as his second wife Salina Harp, who was the widow of Martin L. Cecil—a brother of Captain John Cecil.

Get your genealogy software to compute that.

Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG, was formerly the editor of RootsWeb Review and a columnist for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Now in retirement, she labors at detangling her illustrious roots and pruning her family’s notorious branches—the latter has turned out to be a full-time job.