Death of Nathan Tisdale (1831-1901)

Nathan Tisdale (1831-1901)

Among the newspaper clippings tucked into the Tisdale Booksh family bible was the obituary of Belle's first cousin, Nathan Tisdale. Nathan was the son of her father's oldest brother, Joseph Wade Tisdale and his wife, Mary Amelia Wilson. I wrote about Nathan back in April 2015, but since it has been so long ago I will repeat it.

When my mther was making copies of the clippings she noticed something that caught her eye. One of Nathan's daughters was Mrs. Joseph Daniels. She had been one of Mama's teachers in elementary school. Mama said, "When it came time to study the War Between the States, Mrs. Daniels would say, 'Put away your ooks and I'll read you about the real war.' Then she would read us old letters from people in her family that fought in the war."

1901 Nathan Tisdale Obituary,Sunday, July 28, 1901, Tmes-Picayune (New Orleans, LA) page 3.

TRANSCRIPTION:

ALGIERS AFFAIRS

Death of a Man of Many Honorable Years

Nathan Tisdale, another from the now decimated ranks of Confederate veterans left this terrestrial sphere last Wednesday to join his comrades who have gone before. It was at the home of his son Julian in Rochelle, La., that he breathed his last [July 24, 1901], after a protracted illness, extending over several years. His body was brought to the city last Thursday evening, when it was met at Gretna by Hon. Walter Guion, representing the Army of Tennessee camp, and conveyed to Metairie cemetery, where it was consigned to the handsome and well filled tomb of that organization, in compliance to a long time request of deceased. The remains were accompanied from Rochelle by the members of the family there, in addition to the many relatives from the city.

Deceased was over 70 years old, and had lived an honorable and useful life and while in health made good earnings which were devoted to the use of his family.

Nathan Tisdale was born in Marengo county, Ala., Jan. 8, 1831. He returned to Mobile with the family in his early years, and remained there until 14 years of age, thence to New Orleans, where he resided for two years with his mother and five brothers. He attended the Washington Public School, then taught by a man named Lincoln. He then removed to Covington, where he lived until 1855, when he came to Algiers, where he entered the Orleans dry dock, owned by Peter Marcy and Dick Salter, to learn the ship carpenter's trade. In the following year he was wont to work as a journeyman at full wages on the Louisiana dock No. 1, owned by John Hughes and R. Vallette, and worked there until the war broke out, when he volunteered his services as above stated. When the federal gunboats were coming up the river to capture New Orleans the Algiers Guards would not remain to be captured, but left the city. Nathan Tisdale then prompted by patriotic impulses, sought to reach his brothers, Richard and Joseph, who were in the Army of Virginia, and while en route there was detailed to work for the Confederate government at Charleston, S. C. For several weeks he was at death's door in the hospital at Magnolia, Miss., with typhoid pneumonia. He was at the siege of Mobile, when General E. R. S. Canby attacked it with 70,000 men, when the Confederate forces were only 7,000 men strong. He received a terrible wound there, while in a rifle pit,the ball cutting away the right eyeball, breaking his nose, passing through the left jaw bone and lodging in his left shoulder. He remained in the hospital a long time before he recovered, and ever since has been a suffer[er] from the wound. He was paroled with General Dick Taylor's command at Meridian. He was not able to do hard work for two years afterwatds, and he often spoke in the highest terms of his old comrade and friend, Captain Mark A. Morse, for getting him his first job after the war as carpenter on the steamship Mary Morgan, then in the Texas trade. He only held the position five months, when he resigned on account of his wife's ill-health. He worked as carpenter on the steamships Harlan, Gussie, Hughes, Morgan City and Algiers, all of the Morgan Line. On the latter ship he did his best work. He was on the Gussie, when she was supposed to be lost at sea; on the Harlan, when she was burned at Bluefields?, and while on the steamship Algiers, in Mobile harbor, fell down an open hatchway, a distance of 18 feet, and lay unconscious for a long time from the effects of the fall. He had two ribs broken from another fall, and had a cancer cut from his lip. So it can be seen that his life was fraught with hardship and misfortunes, which were only alleviated by the devotion of his beloved wife and devoted children.

A few months since his daughter, Eva Tisdale, was buried just as she had blossomed into beautiful womanhood, and that shock hastened the death of this good old man. The surviving widow [Catherine Lamontis now at her daughter's home in Algiers, and the loss of her husband has prostrated her, coming so soon in the wake of the death of her daughter.

The other surviving members of the family are the children: Mrs. Joseph W. Daniels, wife of the superintendent of station A postoffice; Walter L Tisdale, Urania, La., Mrs. B. F. Pendavis, Tullis, La., Julian Tisdale, Rochelle, La., and Edgar Tisdale, who is employed on the steamship Algiers, of the Morgan Line. [probably New Orleans newspaper]   

Nathan O. J. Tisdale 1816-1870

 Thursday, August 11, 1870
Mobile Register, page 2

  On August 11, 1870 the Mobile Register carried a death notice for N. O. J. Tisdale, B. F. Tisdale's older brother. It said that he died on August 9, 1870, at 4 o'clock P.M. of consumption at the residence of Mr. Jacob Magee in Kushla, Alabama, now part of Mobile. Jacob's wife, Mary Eliza Tisdale, was the older sister of B. F. and N. O. J. Tisdale.
 

New Orleans Times Picayune
August 11, 1870, page 4

  The New Orleans Times Picayune also published an obituary:
   On Tuesday, Aug. 9, 1870, at Kushla, Ala., N. O. J. TISDALE, Gen'l Sup't N. O. Gas Light Co. aged 53 years, born in Newbern, N. C., and for twenty-five years a resident of this city.
   The funeral will take place from his late residence, No. 193 Esplanade street, Thursday, August 11, at 4 o'clock, P.M.
The friends of his family are respectfully invited to attend.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF NATHAN O. J.  TISDALE   1816 - 1870

Nathan O. J. Tisdale is most often referred to in print as N. O. J. Tisdale. The name is often mis-transcribed as N. O. I. or N. O. L. His first name appears on his marriage license, on the birth and death records of several of his children, and on the 1840 and 1870 censuses. There is no record of what O. J. stood for. He was born in New Bern, North Carolina, on March 4,1816.

He was named for his father Nathan Tisdale (1766-1839) who was a silversmith and watch maker. His father in turn had been named for his uncle, noted Harvard educator Nathan Tisdale (1732-1787) of Lebanon, Connecticut. The name was very popular in the Tisdale family. N. O. J.'s mother was Nathan's second wife, Mary “Polly Wade (c1780-1839).

N. O. J. and B. F.'s grandfather, William Tisdale (1734-1797), had come to North Carolina from Connecticut in the 1850s to join his uncle Antipas Tisdale. William was a well-known lawyer, silversmith, and watch maker who was a delegate to the Provincial Congress of North Carolina in 1775. He engraved and printed the state's Bills of Credit and engraved the state seal of North Carolina. The family was proud of their connection to Benjamin Franklin and Nathan O. J. Tisdale's younger brother was named for his grandfather's famous cousin.

Rosa Tisdale in her book, Meet the Tisdales, says, “The Tisdales of Lebanon were good friends of Governor Trumbull and during the Revolutionary War often met with him in the “war office” to plan ways and means of aiding the patriot forces. Here they met and conversed with General Washington and Lafayette and Franklin and other men of distinction.”

When the family decided to emigrate to Alabama in 1830, Nathan had three living brothers, Joseph Wade, Benjamin Franklin, and John B. Tisdale, and one sister, Mary Eliza. He also had three older half siblings. The house where the family lived in New Bern is still standing and is on the National Register of Historic Places as is the home of his grandfather.

Marion E. Tisdale, Jr. in “Some Memories of the Magee Farmhouse” writes that Nathan and his family bought “a small plantation on the Tombigbee River” and traveled there by wagon train in 1830. Nathan Tisdale and his family are listed on the 1830 Federal Census in New Bern, North Carolina, so they moved to Alabama some time after June 1830. There was an economic decline in the New Bern area at that time, mostly because of the silting in of the approach to the harbor from Okracoke Inlet. Many families joined the exodus to Alabama where cheap, fertile land was available.

On January 25, 1832 a deed was recorded in Marengo County, Alabama, for land in “Range 1 East Township 17 North (Moscow-Saltwell vicinity). Robert Goodwyn Jr. of Marengo Co. [sold] to Charlotte Wade of Craven Co. NC as trustee for her daughter Mary (Mrs. Nathan) Tisdale, for $650, fractional section 9 and West half of Northwest quarter of section 15. [Fractional sections bordered the Tombigbee River.] Witnesses George Cuninghame,clerk of court, and James H. Adams. (Deed Book B-344).”

(Marengo County Genealogical Society Newsletter, Vol. 13, No. 1, Autumn 2001, "First Recorded Deeds of Lands in Range 1 East" found in Deed Books A and B, Marengo County, Alabama.) Marengo County was created by the Alabama Territorial legislature on February 6, 1818, from land acquired from the Choctaw Indians by the Treaty of Fort St. Stephenson, October 24, 1816. (Wikipedia)

Rosa Tisdale in her book “Meet the Tisdales” says that Nathan and Polly moved their family to Mobile, Alabama in 1833. This may have been because of increasing violence in the area that led to the Creek War of 1836. Nathan O. J. was 20 years old when he served in Crawford's Company, Alabama Mounted Volunteers. (U. S. Indian Wars Pension Application number 647, certificate 2352)

On September 29, 1838 Nathan O. J. married Maria Louisa McCrae in Mobile. The household is listed on the 1840 Federal Census of Mobile as Nathan O. J. Tisdale, 1 male under 5, 1 male 20-30, 1 female 15-20, and no slaves.

Nathan O. J.'s father died in September 1839 and his mother died in October 1839. Nathan and Maria and their two sons, Eugene and Victor moved to New Orleans sometime in the late 1840s. His older brother, Joseph Wade Tisdale had been living in the city since 1842. On November 3, 1849 Maria McCrae Tisdale died. No cause of death is known but there was a cholera epidemic in New Orleans that year. There were also 739 Yellow Fever deaths.

In the1850 census in Lafayette Ward 2, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, just west of New Orleans, we find N. O. J. Tisdale, age 35, clerk, and sons Eugene, age 8, and Victor, age 6, listed in the household of Jerome Tuitchel, OSP Minister, along with 14 other people. Tuitchel may have been running a boarding house. The house is next door to the State Prison. In City Directories of that period he is listed as a clerk at 120 Common Street, which was the New Orleans Gas Light Company. The company furnished gas to the street lights that still line the curbs in the French Quarter.

On July 31, 1851 Nathan O. J. Tisdale married Rosa Roux of New Orleans. Rosa evidently had been married before. Her surname is listed as Pailhes on the birth registrations of children Catherina, William, and Clarence. In the 1870 Federal Census at Mobile her mother is listed in the Tisdale household as Veuve [widow] Pailhes. Her daughter Marie Roux Tisdale's death record says she was born in 1847, before Rosa's marriage to Nathan, so it is likely Rosa was a widow with a young child when they married.

I could not find the family on the 1860 census, but N. O. J. is in the New Orleans City Directories of the period and by 1861 he is listed as Treasurer of the New Orleans Gas Light Company at 120 Common. His domicile is on Jackson near Prytania. His oldest son, Eugene, is also working for the Gas Light Company as a clerk.

N. O. J. Tisdale's name appears in New Orleans newspapers throughout the 1860s. In an article published January 5, 1861 in the Daily Crescent, besides announcements that the U. S. Arsenal at Mobile had been seized and that Fort Morgan had been taken by Mobile troops, there was an article titled Local Intelligence:

THE SOUTHERN RIGHTS MASS MEETING AT ODD FELLOWS' HALL -- The Southern Rights mass meeting last night crowded Odd Fellows' Hall, with a fair representation of the better sex in the gallery. It was in all aspects an enthusiastic and fiery Secession meeting – just such a meeting as the times call for.

The following gentlemen were announced as officers, who were received with acclamation:

President GEO. W. HELME

VICE PRESIDENTS

There follows a list of 186 names, among them N. O. J. Tisdale.

The Southern Rights party had broken off from the Democratic party and supported nominee John Breckinridge who won the 1860 Presidential election in Louisiana, but ultimately lost to Abraham Lincoln. On January 7, 1861, N. O. J. and B. F. Tisdale joined other males in New Orleans in going to the polls again to select delegates for a convention to decide the secession question. It was no surprise that secession won out.

The State Convention convened at Baton Rouge on January 23, 1861, and three days later an Ordinance of Secession was adopted. A chaotic and difficult time in New Orleans had begun.

As I wrote in my blog posts of December 2014, New Orleans business was brought to a standstill by news of native son Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard's bombardment and capture of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 14, 1861. The Civil War had officially begun.

A new militia act was passed on January 23, 1862 ordering all free white males between 18 and 45 years of age capable of bearing arms to enroll in the State Militia.

Nathan's oldest son Eugene King Tisdale was 20 years old when he enlisted on March 6, 1862. He was a private in the 5^th Company, Washington Artillery Battalion.

On April 24, 1862 the bells of all the churches in New Orleans began ringing. It was the signal for all military organizations to hasten to their armories. (Charles Dufour, The Night the War Was Lost, p. 289) While Eugene left for Baton Rouge by train with his company, younger brother Victor evidently went to Mobile where he later enlisted in the 3^rd Company, Washington Artillery Battalion on June 3, 1863.

Business had been slow because of the Union blockade of the river, but as news spread that Farragut's ships had passed the forts and were heading up river, the city dissolved into panic. Nathan may have stood on the levee with the crowds of people and looked across the crescent bend of the Mississippi River for a glimpse of the Union fleet. Like writer George Washington Cable, he may have watched the masts of Farragut's vessels, engaged in silencing the Confederate batteries at Chalmette.

Our next peek into N. O. J. Tisdale's life comes on March 19, 1863 when he petitions the Union Provost Marshal in Occupied New Orleans for a new trial. His three and a half page deposition gives a good picture of the conditions in the city.

Transcription

[1]

N. O. J. Tisdale being duly Sworn deposes & Says that the fair which took place at his house on Coliseum Street, on the 11 Instant, was given for the exclusive benefit of the Infant Asylum on the Corner of Magazine & Pace Streets, to the aid of which his wife has been in the habit of Contributing, more particularly by means of a Sewing Society of young girls who have met weekly for Sometime past at his house. That as the Condition of the children at the asylum was one of almost destitution, the idea of raising a fund for their wants by means of a fair Suggested itself to Mrs. Tisdale & other ladies & everything was contributed as is usual on such occasions & the fair was given & it was conducted by the young girls of the Sewing Society, assisted by their relatives & friends & those young girls were distinguished by a badge of deep blue ribands with “St. Vincents Sewing Society” in gilt letters upon it.

He further deposes and Says that the parlor, in which the tables were placed, was simply decorated with wreaths of evergreen flowers & that no flage or mottoes of any kind were placed amongst them nor in any other part of the house nor was their any flag dis-

[2]

-played or placed upon any of his galleries, either in the front or rear of his house.

He further deposes and Says that he did not apply to the Authorities for a permit to hold the fair, because he was informed that a Similar fair had been held by ladies at the residence of Mr. Sumner in St Charles Street & that upon enquiry then made the answer had been given that for such an occasion at a private house, no permit was necessary; and this deponent particularly declares that he had no idea that any City ordinance or regulation had reference to Such Cases & that in not applying to the Mayor for permission he meant no disrespect to that Officer.

This deponent further deposes & Says that in giving his Consent that the fair should be held in his house, he expressly requested that nothing having any political Significance should be permitted, that the fair was an open appeal to the charity of all & that he should be pleased to See all parties, officers of the United States, Union men or others present at & contributing to its objects, and that accordingly when it was found that amongst the many articles received there was an iced pound cake decorated with the Confederate flag Mrs Tisdale had it Scraped off; and this deponent further

[3]

declares that he saw nothing and heard nothing offensive to the keenest susceptabilities himself; and he expressly denies that there was any cheering for Jeff. Davis, or for any other person.

And he further avers that Since the trial of this Case, on enquiry he has learnt that a piece of verse called the Battle of the fair and a Small Composition in prose were offerred for Sale in the fair, during its progress, but this was done without his knowledge or consent & he has never even to this moment Seen or read either the piece of poetry or prose and knows nothing of their Contents; and this deponent further Says that being unconscious of having done any thing wrong, and not knowing the precise nature of the chaarge preferred Against him, he was taken altogether by Surprize by the testimony of the Witnesses introduced against him; that the most imprtant part of said testimony is founded in error as above set forth; That in learning the Court room has informed his Counsel that he Could prove by the most respectable witnesses, who were present at the fair, that the testimony of the witnesses against him is erroneous and that the State-

[4]

-ment herein made by this deponent is Correct; That this application for further evidence is made Solely for the purpose of having Substantial Justice done, and of enabling this Honorable Court to form a correct Judgement of the real facts as they occurred.

N. O. J. Tisdale

Sworn to and subscribed before me,

at New Orleans, on the 19^th March 1863.

[W.? M?------ Illegible signature]

3^rd. J. D. [Judicial District?]

The Union Provost Marshals' Papers, 1861-1867 (database on-line, Provo, UT, USA; Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.,2012) do not tell us the outcome of Nathan O. J.'s request. Many citizens were tried and fined or sent to prison at Ship Island for equally petty offenses. Having two sons and two brothers in the Confederate Army would have been reason enough for official harassment.

Son Eugene was discharged from service after several hospital stays and after battling variola, an archaic term for smallpox. Victor served until the end of the war and was paroled at Lynchburg, Virginia on April 13, 1865.

There were no City Directories published during the war so we have no record of where the family lived during that time. In the 1866 and 1867 New Orleans City Directories N. O. J Tisdale is listed as General Superintendent Gas Company,120 Common, domicile 233 Jackson. In 1868 N. O. J. is still General Superintendent at the Gas Light Co. and living at 193 Esplanade. Son E. K. Tisdale is collector City Gas Works and son Victor is a clerk at J. K. Ashbridge & Decan.

Nathan's final mention in the New Orleans Times-Picayune was on August 11, 1870:

The entire community will be shocked to learn of the death of one of our most estimable citizens, N. O. J. Tisdale, late General Superintendent of the New Orleans Gas Light Company. Mr. Tisdale was 53 years of age, had been for many years a resident of New Orleans, and a wide circle of warmly attached friends will deeply sympathize with his bereaved family. The funeral will take place from his late residence, No. 193 Esplanade street, Thursday, August 11, at 4 o'clock, P.M.

   

Pratts and Tisdales in the Civil War

This Carte de Visite of Belle Tisdale's Uncle Joel Eugene Pratt (1847-1932) is the only photo we have of one of Belle Tisdale's relatives in Civil War uniform. The interesting thing about this photo is that it was taken in New Orleans at E. A. Piffet's National Gallery of Art in New Orleans. The two tax stamps on the back date it to between August 1864 and August 1866. New Orleans during the Federal occupation would not have been a place to walk into a photographer's studio in a Confederate uniform, so it must have been taken after the end of the war.

Joel Eugene Pratt was Belle's mother's youngest brother. He was just eight years older than Belle. He was listed in Andrew B. Booth's 1920 Records of Louisiana Confederate Soldiers and Confederate Commands, Vol. 3, page 195 as E. J. Pratt, Private in Company I, Ogden's Louisiana Cavalry. Booth's Records database is also available at Ancestry.com. 

Eugene is also listed in “Louisiana, Civil War Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, 1861-1865” Index at FamilySearch.org. The microfilm images of the actual muster rolls can be found on fold3.com's “Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations From the State of Louisiana.” NARA microfilm publication M320, roll 29. According to Eugene's pension application of 1915 he enlisted near Clinton, Louisiana, on May 4, 1864 when he was 17 years old.

Eugene's older brother Marion Franklin Pratt (1832-1909) was also listed in Booth's Records in Company I, Ogden's Cavalry, serving as a First Sergeant. Marion had served previously during the defense of New Orleans in Company G, Confederate Guards Regiment, Louisiana Militia, from March 8 to April 30, 1862. On Marion's pension application in 1908 he says he enlisted at Baton Rouge in 1862 and served in Duncan Stewart's Cavalry, Company A, Ogden's Battalion. Muster Rolls say he was taken prisoner on 2 May 1863. He must have been paroled because he says that his unit was consolidated in April 1865 and became Company I, Ogden's Louisiana Cavalry. Marion said he received a flesh wound while fighting near Jackson, Mississippi, and spent 60 days in the hospital there.

Both Marion and Eugene are listed in Union records of prisoners of war as surrendering at Citronelle, Alabama, on 4 May, 1865, and being paroled at Gainesville, Alabama, on 

May 12, 1865. (fold 3.com) The only story that has been passed down in the family was of Uncle Marion spending some time at the Confederate Veterans Home at Beauvoir in Gulfport, Mississippi. Check out the website at Beauvoir.org  Belle's daughter and my great aunt, Vera Booksh Ventress, had a wooden spoon that he carved while he was there.

Dr. James William Pratt
July 2, 1865
Moses & Piffet Studio, New Orleans

Records for James W. Pratt (1828-1920) have been hard to find. Kate Craig Couturie in her letter of 1904 says that all three of William Pratt's sons fought in the war. (See 2015 01 15 blog post.) There were several Confederate soldiers by that name, but so far none have turned out to be Belle's Uncle James. We do know that James was a physician, so he may have served in that capacity and was not listed among the soldiers. On 29 April 1863 the Confederate government paid James Pratt in Clinton, Louisiana, $8.00 for one coffin and $2.00 for digging a grave. Also in April they paid him $9.50 for repairing the Quarter Master's Stable and $7.50 for repairing tables at the hospital. Was that Uncle James? An April 1, 1864 receipt from the Confederate Depositary's Office [sic] in Columbus, Mississippi, shows that James Pratt purchased $800 worth of Confederate bonds. Once again we do not know if this is our James Pratt. In the 1890 Civil War Veterans and Widows Schedule, James Pratt of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, is listed as a veteran, but we cannot be sure this is the same James Pratt. Belle's Uncle James survived the war and lived to be 91 years old.

Besides Belle's father, Benjamin Franklin Tisdale, and her cousin, Nathan Tisdale, whose service in defense of the city of New Orleans in 1862 has already been detailed, several other Tisdale relatives served in the Civil War and are listed in the Booth's Records of Louisiana Confederate Soldiers and Confederate Commands.

According to his obituary Nathan Tisdale left the defenses at Algiers in April 1862 and took off to find his brothers, Joseph and Richard. They were all sons of Joseph Wade Tisdale I (1808-1848) and his wife Mary Amelia Wilson (1815-1888).

Nathan Tisdale enlisted on April 23, 1862 at Algiers, Louisiana, where he was working as a ships carpenter. He was 30 years old and was a Private in Co. A, 30^th La. Infantry. He is listed as present on rolls from April 1862 to December 1862. He served on detached service at Charleston, South Carolina in May and June of 1863 and at Montgomery, Alabama from July 1863 to April 1864. While he was on detached service at Mobile from November 1,1864 to February 28, 1865, he was seriously injured during the Siege of Mobile. He is on the Roll of Prisoners of War of Quintaard Hospital, C.S.A, and was paroled at Meridian, Mississippi on May 14, 1865.

His brother Richard G. Tisdale is listed as a Private in Company F, 5^th La. Infantry. He enlisted at age 25 at New Orleans on May 3, 1861 and was in General John B. Magruder's Command in Virginia. He appears on rolls from 1861 through 1863. In July and August 1863 he was sick in Richmond. He was listed as sick in Lynchburg on Rolls from September 1863 to December 1863. The records say he “Left the Regiment sick. Not heard from since. Deserted.” In his pension application of 1906 Richard says, “I was transferred in the fall of 1863 to the Cavalry Service and continued in the Cavalry Service until close of war at which time I was under Brig. Gen.Imbodear[?]...” He says, “I was never taken prisoner until after the surrender. At the surrender our company disbanded at New Market, Va. From there I started on barefoot toward La. About 12 miles from Hartesville, Ga. While on my way home, I was captured by some Union soldiers and carried to Hartesville where I was immediately paroled.” In another statement he says that he made his way from Hartesville in May 1865 “...across the country towards Louisiana and reached home about the 10^th of June 1865...” Richard survived the war and the walk home and married Abby Mitchell in Butler County, Alabama on 24 February 1866.

Nathan's brother Joseph Wade Tisdale II was not so fortunate. He was 19 when he enlisted at New Orleans on 12 May 1862. He served as a Private in the same company as Richard, Company F, 5^th La. Infantry. He was killed on 1 July 1862, probably at the Battle of Malvern Hill on the James River in Virginia.

Eugene and Victor Tisdale, sons of Benjamin Franklin's brother Nathan O. J. Tisdale and his first wife Maria Louisa McCrae, also served in the Confederate Army and their records can be found at the National Archives and fold3.com.

Eugene was a Private in the 5^th Company, Washington Artillery Battalion. He was about 20 when he enlisted 6 March 1862 at New Orleans. He is present on Rolls in April 1862. During May and June 1862 he is listed as “Absent, sick.” He appears again on the rolls from September 1862 to February 1863. In March and April he was in the hospital at Tullahoma, Tennessee. He was admitted to the 1^st Mississippi C.S.A. Hospital at Jackson, Mississippi on 1 July, 1863 with variola, an archaic term for smallpox. The Secretary of War ordered his discharge on 7 August, 1863 and he was discharged from service on 28 September 1863.

Eugene's younger brother Victor was 18 when he enlisted as a Private in the 3^rd Company, Washington Artillery Battalion on 3 June 1863 at Mobile, Alabama. Victor is listed on rolls from August to October 1863. He was “Absent, sick at Lynchburg, since August 1, 1863.” He returned to his company on Nov. 27, 1863 and is listed on rolls from January 1864 to February 1865. He is on the list of prisoners of war paroled at Lynchburg, Virginia on April 13, 1865.

Belle's uncle, John B. Tisdale, her father's younger brother, served as a Second Lieutenant in Company A, 2^nd Regiment, Alabama Volunteer Militia. Another Alabama Tisdale cousin, also named Benjamin Franklin Tisdale, served as a Private in Company C, 46^th Alabama Infantry.

Civil War Sesquicentennial

[From http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/  Public Domain]

April is Confederate History Month. Today, April 9, 2015, is the 150th  anniversary of General Robert E. Lee's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. While April 9, 1865, is generally being commemorated as the end of the Civil War, it was just the first of several surrenders.

Richmond had fallen on April 2, 1865. Confederate government officials had fled and many of the papers had been burned. There was no CSA government to negotiate a surrender so commanders in the field had to negotiate their own surrender terms as news from the East reached them.

Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865 and the accession of Andrew Johnson to the presidency further complicated the situation.

On April 26, 1865, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, commander of the Army of Tennessee, met with Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman in Greensborough, North Carolina, and came to an agreement of surrender. After much political wrangling, Gen. Grant wired his approval and Johnston's army laid down its arms on May 3, 1865.

The next day, May 4, 1865, Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor surrendered the army of the Departments of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana to Gen. E. R. S. Canby at Citronelle, Alabama, 40 miles north of Mobile. Taylor had previously met and negotiated a ceasefire with Gen. Canby on April 29, 1865 at Jacob Magee's farm in Kushla. Of interest to our family is the fact that Mrs. Magee was Benjamin Franklin Tisdale's sister, Mary Eliza Tisdale (1810-1882). Of further interest is the fact that Belle Tisdale's cousin, Nathan Tisdale, fought at the Siege of Mobile and was lying wounded at Taylor's headquarters in Meridian, Mississippi, by the time his general surrendered.

On May 10, 1865, at Tallahassee, Florida, Major General Samuel Jones surrendered the army of the Departments of South Georgia and Florida to Brig. Gen. Edward M. McCook.

On May 11, 1865, at Chalk Bluff, Arkansas, Brig. Gen. Merriwether Jeff Thompson surrendered the army of the Department of Missouri to Maj. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge.

On May 26, 1865, in New Orleans, Lt. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, acting for Lt. Gen. E. Kirby Smith, surrendered the Army of the Trans-Mississippi, which included West Louisiana and Texas, to Maj. Gen. Simon B. Osterhaus with Gen. Kirby Smith signing the agreement in Galveston, Texas, on June 2, 1865.

The last surrender was on June 23, 1865, when Brig. Gen. Stand Watie, who was also chief of the Cherokee Nation, surrendered his battalion of Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and Osage Indians to Lt. Col. Asa C. Matthews near Fort Towson in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.

The Federal Government declared the War to be officially over on August 20, 1865.

[Sources: Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War, edited by Patricia L. Faust, posted on http://www.civilwarhome.com/confederatesurrender.html and “The Surrenders” by John Cook, posted on http://www.americancivilwar.asn.au

USEFUL WEBSITES

The "Index of Civil War Information Available on the Internet" formerly maintained by the Louisiana State University Civil War Center is also available on the civilwarhome website.

The  Civil War Sesquicentennial website has a great time line of events for the entire war.

Strangely enough, one of the best papers I found while researching this part of the war was at  the American Civil War Round Table of Australia website . Yes, Australia! Their 2006 Conference Papers include John Cook's paper cited above.

Nathan Tisdale (1831-1901)

Tucked into Belle Tisdale Booksh's family bible were dozens of faded yellow newspaper clippings. Most of them were obituaries and the longest and most interesting was the obituary of Nathan Tisdale. When my mother first copied the clippings, she had no idea how Nathan fit into the family. There are several Nathans scattered across the tree. Later research shows that Nathan was Belle's first cousin, son of her father's oldest brother Joseph Wade Tisdale and his wife Mary Amelia Wilson.

There was one thing in the obituary that caught Mama's eye. One of Nathan's daughters was Mrs. Joseph Daniels. She had been one of Mama's teachers in elementary school. Mama said, "When it came time to study the War between the States, Mrs. Daniels would say, 'Put away your books and I'll read you about the real war.' Then she would read us old letters from people in her family that fought in the war."

Obituary of Nathan Tisdale (1831-1901)

TRANSCRIPTION:
Sunday, July 28, 1901, Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA) page 3.
Source: GenealogyBank.com

ALGIERS AFFAIRS.

Death of a Man of Many Honorable Scars.

Nathan Tisdale, another from the now decimated ranks of Confederate veterans, left this terrestrial sphere last Wednesday to join his comrades who have gone before. It was at the home of his son, Julian, in Rochelle, La., that he breathed his last, after a protracted illness, extending over several years. His body was brought to the city last Thursday evening, when it was met at Gretna by Hon. Walter Guion, representing the Army of Tennessee camp, and conveyed to Metairie cemetery, where it was consigned to the handsome and well-filled tomb of that organization, in compliance to a long-time request of deceased. The remains were accompanied from Rochelle by the members of the family there, in addition to the many relatives from the city.

Deceased was over 70 years old, and had lived an honorable and useful life, and while in health made good earnings, which were devoted to the use of his family.

Nathan Tisdale was born in Marengo County Ala., Jan, 8, 1831. He returned to Mobile with the family in his early years and remained there until 14 years of age, thence to New Orleans, where he resided for two years with his mother and five brothers. He attended the Washington Public School, then taught by a man named Lincoln. He then removed to Covington, where he lived until 1853, when he came to Algiers, where he entered the Orleans dry dock, owned by Peter Marcy and Dick Salter, to learn the ship carpenter's trade. In the following year he was wont to work as a journeyman at full wages on the Louisiana dock No. 1, owned by John Hughes and F. Vallette, and worked there until the war broke out, when he volunteered his services as above stated. When the federal gunboats were coming up the river to capture New Orleans the Algiers Guards would not remain to be captured, but left the city. Nathan Tisdale then, prompted by patriotic impulses, sought to reach his brothers, Richard and Joseph, who were in the Army of Virginia, and while en route there was detailed to work for the Confederate government at Charleston, S. C. For several weeks he was at death's door in the hospital at Magnolia, Miss., with typhoid pneumonia. He was at the siege of Mobile, when General E. R. S. Canby attacked it with 70,000 men, when the Confederate forces were only 7,000 men strong. He received a terrible wound there, while in a rifle pit, the ball cutting away the right eyeball, breaking his nose, passing through the left jaw bone and lodging in his left shoulder. He remained in the hospital a long time before he recovered, and ever since has been a suffer [sic] from the wound. He was paroled with General Dick Taylor's command at Meridian. He was not able to do hard work for two years afterwards, and he often spoke in the highest terms of his old comrade and friend, Captain Mark A. Morse, for getting him his first job after the war as carpenter on the steamship Mary Morgan, then in the Texas trade. He only held the position five months, when he resigned on account of his wife's ill-health. He worked as carpenter on the steamships Harlan, Gussie, Hughes, Morgan City and Algiers, all of the Morgan Line. On the latter ship he did his best work. He was on the Gussie when she was supposed to be lost at sea; on the Harlan when she was burned at Bluefields, and while on the steamship Algiers, in Mobile harbor, fell down an open hatchway, a distance of 18 feet, and lay unconscious for a long time from the effects of the fall. He had two ribs broken from another fall, and had a cancer cut from his lip. So it can be seen that his life was fraught with hardship and misfortunes, which were only alleviated by the devotion of his beloved wife and devoted children.

A few months since his daughter, Eva Tisdale, was buried just as she had blossomed into beautiful womanhood, and that shock hastened the death of this good old man. The surviving widow is now at her daughter's home in Algiers, and the loss of her husband has prostrated her, coming so soon in the wake of the death of her daughter.

The other surviving members of the family are the children: Mrs. Joseph W. Daniels, wife of the superintendent of station A postoffice; Walter I. Tisdale, Urania, La.; Mrs. B. F. Pendavis, Tullis, La.; Julian Tisdale, Rochelle, La., and Edgar Tisdale, who is employed on the steamship Algiers, of the Morgan Line.

[Memorial at http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10876347

Photo Added by: M. Williamson]