Shrouded Past Revealed

Following the death of Libbie Graham in 1910, family knowledge of the ancestral life in Ireland seemed to have faded from memory. Until the 21st Century, descendants of William Graham thought they knew that he immigrated from County Tyrone, Ireland and had served in the American Civil War. There was a vague idea that he been captured and imprisoned in Libby Prison sometime during that service. 

Previously Unknown Letters 

Notre Dame University

In August 2008, while searching the Internet, a cousin made a discovery which began filling this memory vacuum. During a web search using the name 'William Graham' he came upon a website maintained by Notre Dame University. 

This website indicated that Notre Dame held in its library 16 letters written by William Graham during the Civil War. A quick perusal of the accompanying description supported the conclusion that these letters were written by my great grandfather. 

An additional letter was discovered at the Schuyler County Historical Society. Attempts to follow up on the original source for these letters were unsuccessful.

Letter addressed to William's cousin John Boyes

The letters provided three key pieces of new information;

• William's sister, cousin and father lived in Schuyler County, New York,
• the name of his sister was Libbie Graham, and
• the name of his cousin was Dr. Robert Bell.

A search of the Schuyler County genealogy site using the Bell name brought up a 1903 "Biographical Record of Schuyler County, NY" with a lengthy entry for Dr. Robert Bell, including his family and life prior to settling in the county. His father was William Bell and mother was Elizabeth Graham, who had died in 1846.

Using the 1855 New York Census, I was able to discover that a man named James Graham (age 67), who I assumed was William's father, was living with William Bell. William Bell was James' brother-in-law. At the time of the 1860 Census, James Graham (age 70) was living next door to William Bell.

Given the relative commonality of family names, the fact that Schuyler was one of the least populated New York counties helped tremendously in this search endeavor. Interestingly, Schuyler County's population today is less than what it was in 1860 at the start of the Civil War.

With the digital letter images (kindly sent to me by Notre Dame University) and the additional information I was able to discover on the web, the first version of this website was created.

Luck and a Bureaucrat's List

In early 2011 a new source of information on Civil War soldiers compiled just after the end of the war, came online. This was the New York, Town Clerks' Registers of Men Who Served in the Civil War, ca 1861-1865. The New York Laws of 1865 required each town clerk, upon receiving "suitable blanks" from the chief of the State's Bureau of Military Record, "to make out a full and complete record of the names of all the soldiers and officers who composed his town's quotas of the troops furnished to the United States." 

Entry for William Graham in Chemung County - Click to enlarge

In a search for 'William Graham' I came upon an entry for Chemung County. Chemung County is adjacent and southeast of Schuyler. The entry was for the only William Graham who served with Company B of the 107th NY Regiment. William was then a farmer resident of Horseheads, with a postal address in Weston, Schuyler County. Other than confirming that his father's name was James, no other information regarding his heritage was provided. Although the form asked for his time and place of birth, only 'Ireland' had been entered. The place for his mother's name was blank. It was another frustration in my search for information on my great grandfather's origins.

Steuben County farm scene

In November of 2011 (and late at night) I was searching again, as I had periodically, for information on William Graham. This time the Town Clerk's Register showed another entry that looked promising. The residence here was in Wayne, Steuben County, adjacent on the west to both Chemung and Schuyler Counties. A quick check confirmed that this entry also was for the correct William Graham.

It appeared he had worked on two farms in two adjacent counties during the period when the register was compiled. He thus turned up in two places. My luck was that the compiler in Steuben County was more thorough than the one from Chemung.

Entry for William Graham in Steuben County - Click to enlarge

The entry for Steuben County indicated William was born in County Down, Ireland, thus narrowing it down a bit. A birth date was given - August 18, 1836. It shaved off a few years of age as was William's custom and as often happens even today. His mother's maiden name was not a blank, but entered as Jane Shaw. I was ecstatic, I finally had enough information to delve into William's Irish heritage. 

 

Searching the Irish Records

I had previously tried searching Irish records for information on William and his family. Birth records for various William Grahams around the right year were found, but not knowing the mother's maiden name nor the county of birth, a definite determination was impossible. As things turned out, none of the prior potential records were correct.

With the information from the New York State Civil War soldier register discussed above, I was able to identify the church in County Down where he was baptized. Thanks to a cooperative minister, the church records in Ireland indicated 1833 was his true year of birth.

The next post, Emerald Isle Roots, presents detailed findings regarding William's Irish origin and ship passage to America.

Seven New letters

Duke University's Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library

In November 2011, I searched another possible location for documents relating to William Graham in the Civil War. This was the World Catalog or Worldcat, the world's largest catalog. There I found this entry for Duke University - "Papers, 1862-1863. by Libbia Graham; William Graham".

I decided to contact Duke's Rubenstein Library on the chance that the name 'Libbia' was a typographic error, and that these were more of the letters from William Graham to his sister Libbie. My hunch was quickly confirmed.

The library possessed seven letters from my great grandfather written between November 20, 1862 and March 26, 1863. The letters were purchased in the 1960s from an antique shop in Charleston, South Carolina which no longer exists. Those letters (the digital images provided to me by Duke University) are now incorporated into this website.

Contact from Private Collectors

 

Late in 2017 and in the summer of 2018, two private letter collectors contacted me. They had come across the website I had created for William Graham.  In their individual collections they each possessed a letter written by my great grandfather. These letters were written at the time of two key events during the Civil War: the Battle of Antietam and the Siege of Atlanta. The first was written from Harper's Ferry on September 26, 1862, a week after that battle ended. The second was written during the siege (on July 29, 1864) from a camp behind the breastworks surrounding Atlanta. I am most grateful to both these men for sharing the letters they possess written by my great grandfather. The additional letters help me communicate a fuller and more accurate picture of William's life during the American Civil War.