GREEN BERRY HOLDER; DAVID BERRY JOHNSON; ROBERT JOHNSON
The above Confederate Veterans are the most honored ancestors of David Ferguson, a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp # 469 in Rome, GA.
Private Green Berry Holder, g-g-grandfather of compatriot Ferguson, lived in Oak
Level, Alabama but, rather than being drafted into a group that he did not know,
elected to travel to Chattanooga to join up with his home town Company which had
left for the war in 1861. After joining Company I, 25th Alabama Infantry,
Private Berry was almost immediately swept into battle at Chickamauga. After
that he was in battle at: Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, Buzzard Roost Gap,
Resaca, Cassville, New Hope Church, Pickett's Mill, Pine Mountain, Lost
Mountain, Kolb's Farm, Kennesaw Mountain, Nickajack Creek and Peachtree Creek.
On July 22, 1864 he was shot through the right shoulder at the battle of
Atlanta. Family history reports that he was sent home due to his wound, and that
he kept the arm in a sling until the day that he heard the war was over. He then
removed the sling and threw it into a crabapple tree in his front yard. In 1869
he had a daughter, Rebecca Ellen Holder, who is compatriot Ferguson's
g-grandmother. Private Holder died March 27, 1905 at the age of 81.
Since Green Berry Holder was married, 38 years old and had nine children at home, he did not rush off to the war in 1861. However, on July 15, 1863 President Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation which stated "All persons between the ages of 18 and 45 years are hereby ordered themselves to the examining board for examining and enrollment, on the days fixed in the annexed portion of the proclamation. This notice includes every person within the specific ages. Those who have been heretofore examined and discharged, either by state or Confederate surgeons, those who have at any time been discharged from the army, those who have furnished substitutes from attendance at the place appointed, conscripts will come with at least two days rations". This all-inclusive draft notice had the effect of obtaining every man who was able to fight.
One of Private Holder's daughters, Nancy, passed down some of her experiences during the war. "The family at home was having a hard time. Since there was no money and very little to buy even if you had money, the family had to live off the land. Our diet consisted of corn, potatoes, wild animals, and an occasional pig or chicken. Meat, little as there was, was kept hidden in the barn rolled up in a burlap sack and buried under the manure to keep the Yankees from finding it. We would also tie the milk cow in a different place in the woods each day to keep the Yankees from shooting it and since our father had left several small children at home that cow was very valuable to the family". Note: Because civilians were not allowed to keep guns to hunt with, Southerners had to be very resourceful so as to be able to defend their homes from the raiding Yankees.
Private David Berry Johnson, also g-g-grandfather of compatriot
David Ferguson, was a member of Bates' Brigade, Company F, 58th Alabama
Infantry. At the battle of Missionary Ridge, Bates' Brigade reported 400 men
present, but they lost 250 during the battle to being killed or taken captive.
Private Johnson, who was 18 when he enlisted, survived the battle to fight on
South. He was wounded at both the battle of Kennesaw Mountain and Jonesboro but
was still with The Army of Tennessee when it came through Polk County, Georgia.
His Company went on to fight in the battles of Columbia, Franklin and Nashville,
Tennessee, taking great losses in each battle. At the Battle of Nashville, of
the 23,053 Confederates present, only 15,000 had weapons and only 11,000 had
shoes. At this time the army was divided, with about 5,000 being sent to North
Carolina to support Gen Robert E Lee and the Army of Virginia. The rest, which
David was a part, was sent back to Mobile, Alabama where they went on to fight
at the Battle of Spanish Fort, Alabama. Private Johnson, and the rest of his
company, and the rest of the army, then surrendered at Meridian, Mississippi on
May 10, 1865.
Private David Johnson's father, Robert Johnson, also a Private in Bates' Brigade, Company F, 58th Alabama Infantry, was taken captive at the battle of Missionary Ridge. He was sent as a POW to Rock Island, Illinois where he was confined until the end of the war. Through God's good graces, Private Robert Johnson was released on June 19, 1865 and was joined with his son back home in Oak Level, Alabama.