For a long time, I have been curious about Daniel E. Brantley (1833-1864), the brother of my third great-grandfather, Henry Day Brantley (1845-1918). Many members of their family fought in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, but I found Daniel listed as a Union soldier.
That discovery raised an obvious question. Why would a man from a Haywood County family with Confederate ties serve in an Indiana Union regiment?
During a recent visit to the National Archives, I hit the jackpot with the digital contents of “Box 32714, Certificate 101338.” The pension file helped fill in many blanks about Daniel and his wife, Sarah Louisa Booth Brantley Jennings (about 1836-1915).
As it turns out, Sarah also was the sister of one of my direct ancestors.
Daniel was born in 1833 in Bertie County, North Carolina, but traveled with his parents (who are my fourth great-grandparents), Augustus Brantley (1811-1876) and Martha White Brantley (1812-1852), to Haywood County, Tennessee, where the Brantleys were among the earliest settlers. Daniel was the first child born to Augustus and Martha.
As wrote in my blog last year, from information later supplied by Daniel’s youngest brother, Solomon N. Brantley (1847-1927) in the The Tennessee Civil War Veterans Questionnaires, we know the Brantley family farmed 320 acres, lived in a four-room frame house and owned five enslaved people. Solomon recalled that his father ran the farm and his mother ran the household. He also wrote that, as a boy, he was “an expert with a hoe,” and remembered cutting wheat with a cradle, trampling it out with horses and cleaning it by hand with a fan. When asked what he did after the war, Solomon answered, “Building up what the Yankees tore down on my father’s farm.”
From left, top: Henry Brantley, Preston Brantley, from left bottom: Willie Brantley, Virginia Brantley Lovelace: Henry was the father of Preston who was the father of Willie who was the father of my maternal grandmother Virginia.
In the 1850 U.S. census, the Brantley farm was in District 5 of Haywood County. In addition to Samuel and Daniel, another of their sons was Henry Day Brantley. Henry would one day be the father of Henry Preston Brantley (1872-1956), who would be the father of William “Willie” Day Brantley (1897-1969), who would be the father of my maternal grandmother, Virginia Brantley Lovelace (1917-2007).
Next door to the Brantley farm was the farm of James Booth (1790-1852) and Nancy Mulligan Booth (1794-1855). Their youngest child, Sarah Louisa Booth, was 17 in 1850. The Booths are my fourth great-grandparents through my grandmother’s paternal ancestry.
From left: Virginia Brantley Lovelace holding son Bobby, Allie Marbury Brantley and Sarah Lena Booth Marbury: Lena was the mother of Allie who was the other of my maternal grandmother, Virginia.
Their oldest son, William G. “Billy” Booth (1816-1892), would be the father of Sarah Evelena “Lena” Booth Marbury (1868-1949), who would be the mother of Allie Ern Marbury Brantley (1898-1995), who would be the mother of my maternal grandmother, Virginia Brantley Lovelace.
That means Daniel and Sarah sit at the intersection of two family lines that later came together in my grandmother. Daniel was from my Brantley line. Sarah was from my Booth line.
Daniel Brantley married Louisa Booth on Jan. 17, 1854. Daniel later purchased a farm in Ripley, Tennessee, in Lauderdale County, just across the county line from Haywood County.
Daniel enlisted in the Union Army in 1863 and served in Company G, 52nd Indiana Infantry Regiment. His Union service stands out because he came from a West Tennessee family whose members, like many of their neighbors, supported the Confederacy. His brothers Julius and Solomon both served in Confederate cavalry units.
Daniel’s service in an Indiana regiment suggests he may have left West Tennessee before or during the war, crossed into Union-held territory or made a political choice that placed him at odds with much of his family. The pension file does not explain why he joined the Union Army, but that unanswered question makes his story even more compelling.
Tennessee itself was deeply divided during the Civil War. East Tennessee had strong Unionist sentiment, while West Tennessee had stronger Confederate support, especially in cotton-growing communities where slavery shaped the economy.
The Brantley family became a literal case of brother fighting brother when Daniel’s sibling, Julius Brantley (about 1842-1863), enlisted in the Confederate Army on July 10, 1863, about two months after Daniel’s reported enrollment. Julius served in the 12th Tennessee Cavalry and died Dec. 18, 1863, at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
Another brother, Solomon N. Brantley, enlisted in the Confederate Army on Oct. 1, 1863, and served in the 7th Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. Solomon was discharged in Gainesville, Alabama, in May 1865. At age 75, he filled out that questionnaire sent to surviving Tennessee Civil War veterans that provides so much information about his life before the war.
But what happened to Daniel and Sarah Booth Brantley?
At the National Archives, I found a large pension file that fills in much of their story. Unfortunately, it does not end happily.
The file includes a declaration and supporting proof showing Daniel enrolled May 1, 1863. It reports that he was listed as missing in action on April 9, 1864, after the Battle of Pleasant Hill. One document refers to Pleasant Hill, Georgia, but that appears to have been a clerical error. The battle took place in Louisiana as part of the Red River Campaign.
Other records in the pension file report that Daniel died at Camp Ford, a Confederate prison camp near Tyler, Texas. The documents do not agree on an exact date. Some point to August 1864, while others place his death in September 1864. The most likely cause was diarrhea or dysentery, a common and often deadly illness in Civil War prison camps.
The file also confirms that Daniel E. Brantley and Sarah Louisa Booth married Jan. 17, 1854, and had two daughters: Nancy E. Brantley Ryan (1859-about 1889), and Laura Evangeline Brantley Nicholas (1861-1915). When Daniel enlisted in the Union Army, Nancy was 4 and Laura was 2.
Daniel was reported missing after the Battle of Pleasant Hill on April 9, 1864. Confederate forces captured him and sent him, along with other Union prisoners, to Camp Ford near Tyler. Until that point, the camp had maintained a relatively low death rate, but its population grew sharply after the Red River Campaign. More than 2,000 Union prisoners captured in Louisiana arrived there in 1864, including Daniel.
For Sarah and his daughters back in Tennessee, Daniel likely disappeared before they knew he was dead. He was listed as missing after Pleasant Hill, then carried hundreds of miles west to a prison camp in Texas. By the time official records caught up, Sarah was already a widow with two small daughters.
During the war, Camp Ford held thousands of Union prisoners and became the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi River. At its peak in July 1864, more than 5,300 prisoners were held there.
Daniel Brantley was buried at Alexandria National Cemetery in Pineville, Louisiana. His grave is listed in Plot B, 0, 1027, though the cemetery listings include conflicting entries for a Daniel Brantley, another reason I am being cautious about his exact date of death.
A widow’s pension was not automatic. Sarah had to prove her marriage to Daniel, his military service, his death in service and the births of their children. Her pension stopped when she remarried because federal law generally treated a remarried widow as no longer eligible. After her second husband died, she had to prove her widowhood again to have the pension restored.
After filing forms and supplying affidavits and documents, Sarah received a widow’s pension of $8 per month. The payments continued until she married Green B. Jennings on Nov. 2, 1882.
Sarah became a widow again when Jennings died Jan. 29, 1892. She then began receiving her pension checks again.
After moving to Arkansas, Sarah “got dropped off somehow,” according to one note in the file. In 1903, she enlisted the help of Ripley attorney Thomas Steele Jr.
Sarah clearly needed the pension.
On March 7, 1913, Sarah’s daughter, Laura E. Nicholas, provided details about Sarah’s real estate transactions. She said she and her mother had traded land they owned for 44 acres near Barr, Tennessee. By 1913, the land was nearly gone. According to Nicholas:
“It has all nearly washed away by the Miss. river. There are only about 12 acres left.”
Tomato, Arkansas, sits in the Mississippi River bottomlands, where land could be fertile one year and swallowed by the river the next. By 1913, the river had nearly erased the property Sarah and Laura depended on.
On March 10, 1913, William Sullivan, a special examiner, sent a report to the commissioner of pensions in Washington, D.C. He wrote that Sarah had moved with her daughter’s family to “the banks of the Mississippi River” in Tomato. By then, Sarah was “feeble” and confined to bed. Sullivan described the family’s home as “a hovel on land that overflows at every high water” and described the family as “very poor.”
During this time, Sarah’s niece who was my second great-grandmother, Sarah Evelena “Lena” Booth Marbury, was 44 and living in Haywood County with her husband and children. One of those children was my great-grandmother, Allie Ern Marbury Brantley, who was 18 at the time.
I wonder if they knew what had become of their Aunt Sarah.
I remember my great-grandmother well and wish I could go back now and ask her about this.
After Sullivan’s report, the Bureau of Pensions approved Sarah’s claim on March 29, 1913, allowing her to receive the money she was owed.
The last document in the file reports that Sarah died July 23, 1915, at age 79.
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