CIVIL WAR VETERANS OF BROWN COUNTY, TEXAS

Written by Clay Riley – Every ten years since 1850, a U.S. Federal Census was taken in Texas. These census schedules contained information about our ancestors such as; name, age, gender, marital status, how they were related to the head of the households, place of birth and place of birth of parents of the individual. A tragic loss was the 1890 Census; It had been badly damaged in a fire and was ordered destroyed. That left a twenty year gap of 1880 to 1900, when trying to locate ancestors.

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As an example, a child could have been born in 1881 and would have been nineteen years old in 1900 when the next census was taken. That person could have, married, been deceased or moved from the area without researchers ever knowing they existed.

There are some sources available to provide some insight, such as the 1890 Veterans Census of the U.S. listing persons who served in the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps of the United States, during the war of the rebellion (who were survivors), and widows of such persons.

Although this was intended for Union Veterans, many census takers took this census information for Confederate Veterans also. Brown County, Texas was one of the fortunate counties, whose census takers recorded this information for Confederate Veterans also.

The information contained the following types of information; name of surviving veteran or widow of such veteran, starting rank, company of assignment, name of regiment, date of enlistment, date of discharge, rank at end of service, length of service, post office address, disability incurred and any remarks. As can been seen, this is valuable information for researchers finding their ancestors military service. It also allowed us to place them at a particular place in time.

As an example; one John Shelly reported; John C. Shelly was a private, company L, 12th Kentucky Cavalry, who entered service in 29 December of 1863 and was discharged 23 August 1865. He further stated that he served for one year seven months and 24 days. His post office was Brownwood, he incurred no disabilities and his remark was, “not a scratch”. Considering he served for more than one and one half years in a Kentucky Cavalry Unit, it was no small miracle that he had received, “not a scratch”.

There are eight pages in all for Brown County. Those enumerated were residents or visitors in Brown County at the time the census was taken in June of 1890. I have included one page of the census, so that you can see the information that could be gleaned from these records. The entire eight pages of Brown County and records for other counties, are available at the Brownwood Public Library – Genealogy & Local History Branch at 213 S. Broadway.

There are volunteers from the Pecan Valley Genealogical Society there, to help you with this and many other tools to assist you in your family history research.

Clay Riley is a local historian and retired Aerospace Engineer that has been involved in the Historical and Genealogical Community of Brown County for over 20 years. He is a past President of the Pecan Valley Genealogical Society, served two terms on the Brownwood Public Library Board of Trustees, and is a member of the Brown County Historical Commission. 

Should you have a comment, or a question that he may be able to answer in future columns, he can be reached at; [email protected].