Clay County, Indiana: The France Family Core during the American Civil War

The boys in blue. The older France brothers volunteered for service in the Union army in 1861, Samuel in Company E, 31^st Indiana Infantry Regiment, official date of muster, September 5, 1861, Terre Haute; Jeremiah in Company G, 43rd Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, official date of muster, September 20, 1861. There are many records pertaining to their war service.

Joseph (the younger, born circa 1845) was of war age, also. There is a marriage record for Joseph France and Catherine Newport signed by D.W. Bridges, Clerk of the Clay Circuit, giving the civil date of March 26, 1863 and the religious marriage date of March 29, as administered by Baptist preacher Athel Staggs (1805-1870), who also served in the Indiana legislature from 1865 to 1867. (Staggs is buried in Clay County).  See: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XX5R-19M

Joseph would have been about 18 and Catherine Newport (1849-1937), about 14. This marriage may have been annulled. In any case, if we assume that this is the same person, Catherine Newport married William Mathias Deeter (1831-1912) on September 20, 1865, when she was 16. For their marriage information, see: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XX5T-SXD

William Mathias Deeter served during the war in Company I, 85^th Indiana Infantry Regiment, with Ira Barnes Slack (1834-1864), who was killed at the Battle of Resaca, Georgia. Slack’s widow, Ruthann Priscilla Wheeler Slack, married Samuel France on June 21, 1866, via Justice of the Peace Israel Krytzer. 

Recall from the previous post that the core France family was living with the core Deeter family in 1860, in Clay County.

Did Joseph France the younger join the boys in blue?  Hard to tell at this point. There are three Joseph France soldiers listed from Indiana:

83^rd Indiana Infantry Regiment (also listed as Joseph Frantz)

142^nd Indiana Infantry Regiment

143^rd Indiana Infantry Regiment

If young Joseph served, it’s less likely he was in the 83^rd, and more likely he would have served in the 142^nd, a one-year regiment organized late in the war at Indianapolis: October 21, 1864; mustered out at Nashville on July 14, 1865. This Joseph, sometimes listed as Joseph S. France (born New Philadelphia, Tuscarawas County, Ohio), died on January 7, 1907, and has a veteran’s marker in Marion, Indiana. (Investigate further details as needed.)

Next up, Sarah Ann France (January 22, 1844-January 13, 1876), apparently the oldest daughter of “old” Joseph France and Fanny Widener/Weidner.  In 1860 (see previous post), she was a domestic (servant) and attending school, living with the core France family and the core Deeter family in Clay County. With her older brothers in the war, she was now the oldest France child still in place.

At the age of 20, she married a wounded Union soldier, Henry Newport III – who happened to be Catherine Newport’s (see above) older brother. He was 23, serving in Company H, 39^th Illinois Infantry Regiment. He had been wounded in Virginia in August 1864. They were married on October 30, 1864, in Clay County, by Israel Krytzer. See: https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XX5T-996

The plot thickens in that Henry Newport III had been born in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, on September 13, 1841. Did the Newport and France families know each other in Ohio? Or was that a point of reference for them in Indiana? In addition, the core Newport family was living in Wayne County, Illinois, in 1860, near Fairfield; how often did they come back to Clay County?  All mysterious.

In any case, during the course of the Civil War, Jeremiah France lived through terrible battles, especially in Arkansas, only to die of Erysipelas, or “Saint Anthony’s fire,” in the Burnside Barracks, Indianapolis, age 25. He’s buried at Crown Point Cemetery, with the family name botched on his veteran’s marker (it needs to be fixed some day).

Samuel France survived the war, wounded and weakened, age 26 when mustered out of service in Victoria, Texas, on December 8, 1865. He never fully recovered.

Of the remaining core France family, there was “old” Joseph (57 at war’s end), Christian E. (13 at war’s end) and Susanna (11 at war’s end).  Did they remain with the core Deeter family during the war? 

As ever, more will be revealed.