I recently requested the Civil War file of my great grand uncle, John Jordan. I was curious to know more about this well-heeled and much traveled man since this whole family group seems to be a bit of a mystery. While there were no earth shattering secrets revealed within the records, I did come away with a few more bit of information and a much better picture of who this man was. 
John Jordan is listed on line 21 on the top and bottom sections of this report
In reading through John’s service packet there are a couple of issues that dogged this man in regards to his pension. Quite often the soldiers who survived “The Rebellion” didn’t live long enough to draw their pension. The surviving spouse would then have to submit a pile of papers to provide proof of marriage, age, service and eligibility. Painful for them but a treasure trove of information for the researcher. In this case however, John’s wife pre-deceased him so there isn’t as much supporting evidence as their might be. But there are plenty of letters and other correspondence.
This form shows his dates of service, location and the issue of his age. He states that he had been away from home and in the service of “strangers” since the age of 13. It wasn’t until he was discharged from the army that he returned home to see his mother and she informed him that he was a year older that he thought he was. His correct birthdate was 22 Apr 1838 but he was under the impression that he was born in 1839. His age of eligibility created a huge stack of correspondence since there were no birth certificates.
As you can see from this original filing he had been married but his wife died in July of 1894. I was also sad to see that he had no record of his marriage to Sarah Ella Stiles….I may still be able to find a church record or perhaps a newspaper clipping. But what stunned and saddened me was the answer to the last question: Have you any children living? and his answer of “no living. Children. all Dead”
I was not aware that there were any children from this marriage, so this warrants further research. I would also hazard to say that this was a very painful sentence for him to write based on the hesitation, punctuation and underlining of “All Dead”.
John was able to procure statements from his brothers to verify his birthdate of 1838.
My great-great grandfather Thomas F Jordan was born in 1841 and thereby couldn’t attest to having “been there” for his older brother’s birth, but he could provide a family narrative.
Older brother, James Jordan, born circa 1828 hand wrote his testimony as to John’s actual birthdate. Holy crap! Where is this Bible that he refers to? I have been able to discern so little information about James and his son James that I couldn’t even write a paragraph about these two. How the heck could I even begin to locate that Bible?
Argh! I was hopeful that the next page of the packet would be a page torn or copied from this Bible, but no such luck were to befall me. I do know that a bit of research into this Jay K. Smith is needed as he also performed other legal correspondence for these brothers between Iowa and New York concerning farm mortgages. You can read more about these records here.
While there is no Bible or transcription of such, John kindly provided me with verification of his place of birth. He also states that they were Episcopal but he doesn’t say where in Ireland he was born because he didn’t know. *Deep Sigh*
John Jordan was wounded at the Battle of Port Hudson in Louisiana and spent the rest of his life dealing with the injuries that he sustained. One of the issues that John faced with his pension request was that the wounded, missing and killed list from this battle seemed to be unverifiable and “lost” at the time of his request. They are now available online, so they would seem to have been misplaced or misfiled by the War Department. Nevertheless, this document is quite interesting based on the statement made by James McKiersley that he assisted John during the battle by carrying him to the rear once he was wounded. It would seem to me that James saved John’s life. Reading the description of John’s wound it is quite miraculous that he survived at all. Wounded in the chest just below his left nipple, a through and through shot exiting next to his spine just below his shoulder blade. His punctured lung would have been more than painful but that the ball didn’t find John’s heart amazes me. The initial injury was bad enough but the subsequent threat of infection was all to real.
Entrance and exit wound illustrated on an examining physician’s form.
A different view….gotta love that fig leaf!
At the time of his death in 1909, John was drawing a 15.00 per month pension for his service in the Civil War.
For more about John Jordan and his life read my previous post here.