Getting Wiley G. Woody’s service record correct

 

   Family histories and county heritages books are great resources. They contain family linages and histories, little pieces of the past that, coupled together, paint a large picture of the history of a place. However, many people writing these histories, while well intentioned, often communicate mis- information. The service of Wiley G. Woody, 29^th North Carolina Troops, is a prime example.

   The entry for Woody goes like this: He was ““conscripted into the Confederate army, and was enrolled in Co. I, 29^thth Regt. NC Inf. After a furlough of forty days to recuperate from illness, he rejoined his Regiment at Morristown, Tenn., where he was detailed to guard the commissary wagons. He deserted and went home where he was captured in the fall of 1863 and imprisoned in Castle Thunder… While being transported from Castle Thunder to his regiment in Wilmington, N.C., he escaped and went home, where he hid out in the ‘bushes; until he joined the Union Army at Bulls Gap, Tennessee, in Garrett Honeycutt’s Co., E, 3^rd NC Mtd. Inf., on 3/25/1864.” (Bailey, The Heritage of the Toe River Valley, 1:466)

   Looking into Woody’s Confederate Compiled Service record, we find something of a different story. He was not conscripted in the Confederate army. Woody volunteered on July 11, 1861. (The Conscription law was not passed until April 1862). He was mustered in as a private in Company I, 29^th North Carolina Troops. It appears that on February 21, 1863, Woody was detailed to work in the Quartermaster’s Department, making shoes, in Shelbyville, Tennessee. Sometime later, maybe in March 1863, he was transferred to the Confederate Shoe Shop in Columbus, Georgia. He was still there in August 1864. However, he had been listed as “diseased” on an inspection report on April 21, 1864, while working for the Quartermaster’s Department. That is the end of his Confederate Compiled Service Records from the National Archives.

   Did he desert twice? Maybe. Did he do time in Castle Thunder? Maybe. However, his Confederate regiment was never stationed in Wilmington. His Federal Compiled Service Record states he enlisted in Mitchell County, North Carolina, on March 25, 1864. More interesting was that he was not mustered into Federal service until September 23, 1864, at Bulls Gap, Tennessee. From March 25 to September 23 is a long time to not be officially mustered into service. It might be more likely that he was still in Columbus in August, working for the Confederate government, before making it home and then across the mountains into East Tennessee to enlist by late September. Woody was mustered in as a private in Company E, 3^rd North Carolina Mountain Infantry (US). He was not reported on muster roll sheets until January 1865. On the March-April muster roll sheet, Woody is listed as a deserter, having left on April 2, 1865, taking his Springfield rifle with him. On April 30, 1865, he was dropped from regimental rolls. He was still absent when his regiment was mustered out of service on August 8, 1865. 

   In June 1866, former Federal soldier and local lawyer W. W. Rollins (see this link for more) wrote a letter to the assistant adjutant general, asking that Woody be restored to duty and honorably discharged. Rollins (who had also served in the 3^rd NCMI, but later got in trouble for pension fraud) stated that Woody was “a good soldier, always ready for duty” and based upon the evidence in front of him, thought Woody a trustworthy man. Woody’s letter (in Rollins’s handwriting), dated June 29, 1866, also appears in Woody’s record. Woody’s excuse? While on picket duty in the Crab Orchard section of Washington County, Tennessee in April 1865? (Maybe Crab Orchard in Carter County?), his company moved on without him, heading to Salisbury, NC. (Actually, they never really moved further east than Watauga County, NC, one county away). Woody states he headed to his home in Yancey County (one county southwest), “hoping to hear… of my command…” At some point, he attempted to find his command, but owing to the rainy weather, could not get over the mountains. He apparently gave up. “I could not send any papers to my commanding officer then being no mails in this county.” He was willing to forego pay and allowances to be restored to duty. An affidavit in Woody’s support added that Woody was not only cut off from his command, but that he was also sick. In the end, Woody’s charge of desertion was removed. He applied for an Invalid Pension on April 29, 1869, which was granted.

   Did the author of this short biograph on the Woody family have all of the pieces I have just laid out? Maybe, or maybe not. Did someone purposely try and mislead people? Maybe, or maybe not. Did not including all of the facts (and maybe there are more in Woody’s pension application) hurt future researchers? Yes, they probably did. But for now, at least parts of the service of Wiley G. Woody have  been corrected.