Alexander Lydy ^2,47,84,111

   General Notes:

Excerpt, "The Lydy Family Tree."

Information gathered by Dorothy Lillian (Lydy) Schroeder and Shirley Slonaker.

The Lydy family moved to Washington Court House, Ohio, in Fayette County before their youngest son, James was born. They had formerly lived in Pennsylvania near the town of Chambersburg.

In the year 1867, most of the Lydy family moved to Indiana and settled in and around the Tipton County area. The old part of the Kempton Cemetery located in Tipton County, was the burial ground for the older members of the Lydy family of both Tipton and Clinton Counties.

Alexander Lydy married Sarah Ann Elizabet Hargrave (born May 8, 1843 and died on October 7, 1907) on March 7, 1861. He was twenty-two at the time of the marriage and she was seventeen.

She was the daughter of Herbert Hines Hargrave and Mildred Oliver Hargrave (the Olivers came from North Carolina). Herbert Hines Hargrave was a prosperous farmer and owned a large farm three miles east of Bowersville, Ohio, in Greene County. He was the best educated man in his community and at one time had dinner with President Andrew Johnson in the White House in Washington, D.C. Andrew Johnson was president of the United States between 1865-1869. Herbert was being considered for a government position. There is no record that he received the position. Sarah's sister, Catherine Jane Hargrave, Married Alexander's younger brother, John William Lydy.

During the month of March, 1861, the same month that Alexander and Sarah were married, a call for volunteers to the Union Army to serve six months went out. There was trouble brewing becase of the pros and cons of slavery. At this time in history, there were eighteen free states and fifteen slave states existing. The call was for only six months because nobody expected the war, if there was one, to last any longer than that. When Alexander, age twenty-two, heard the call he hastened to join the army of Ohio, where he and his family had moved to from Pennsylvania, before his youngest brother, James, was born.

The month after Alexander and Sarah started married life together, the war between the States began. The Civil War was officially started when the Confederate forces successfuly attacked Fort Sumter in the Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861. In August, six months later, he received his discharge and the state of Ohio still had not entered the war. The scrappy characteristics of the Lydys showed up in Alexander at this time. Believing that Ohio was moving too slowly in her war preparations and might not get into the war at all before it was over, he went to the state of West Virginia and enlisted in Company F, First West Virgina Calvary. He enlisted to the duration of three years on August 25, 1861.

He was twenty-three years old at the time. His personal description at enlistment as is stated on his war records was as follows: Height - six feet, no inches; complexion - sandy; color of eyes - blue; color of hair - red; his occupation was - carpenter.

Four days later on August 29, 1861, his youngest brother, James, followed him into Company F, First West Virginia Calvary. He was eighteen years old at the time and also signed up for the duration of three years, however, he did not serve the full time. He was discharged on February 14, 1863, on a Surgeon Certificate of disability.

We do not have a complete list of battles in which Alexander fought but his first sign of action was the battle at Winchester, Virginia. The North was victorious; however, this was not a major battle. This was the only battle that the famous Confederate General, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, personally ever lost.

Alexander, along with three of his brothers, fought at the Second Battle of Bull Run, also known as Manassas. Many Civil War battles have two names because the Confederates named them after the nearest settlement and the Northererners often named them after the nearest body of water. The commander of the Union Army was Pope and the victorious Confederate commander was Lee. The South regained almost all of Virginia at this time.

On August 31, 1862, Alexander was reported missing. He was missing for approximately two months before it was discovered that he had been captured the enemy during the Second Battle at Bull Run. It was during this same battle that his brother, Samuel was severely wounded. He died in 1866 from these wounds.

It is to be assumed that Alexander was exchanged for a Southern solder held prisoner by the North, since this was the usual custom in the early part of the war, because his rcords show that he reported back to camp on May 1, 1863, after an extended leave at home. This system of exchange broke down because of bad feelings and confusion as to the legal status of the Confederacy and exchange of prisoners were then stopped.

On July 1,2 and 3, 1863, at the battle of Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, approximately one hundred and thirty miles directly east of where he was born, Alexander was again engaged in fighting. This was a major battle with great losses of men by both sides. The commanders of the armies were Meader for the North and Lee for the South. The northern victory of this battled marked a turning point in the war.

During the battle, Alexander was standing very close to his commanding officer, General Farnsworth, ready to charge whe the General was short off of his horse and died.

Alexander saw other battles and other parts of history in the making but these have not been put on paper to be remembered, however, his last experience on the battlefield was recorded. He and his company were located at Buckland, Virgina (this is a little post-hamlet of Prince William County, approximately three miles from Taoroughfare Station. The closest town of any size is Gainesville, Virgina).

He was on patrol duty when he sighted the rebels. One shot meant army on alert and two shots meant to charge. He tried to shoot a warning. He then jumped his horse across a creek. The hindlegs of the horse slipped back into the creek, and he jumped and ran on foot. When he saw they were going to capture him, he threw his saber and rifle in the creek before surrendering.

He was captured on October 19, 1863, and taken to Libby Prison, an old tobacco warehouse located in Richmond, Virginia, where he spent six months as a prisoner. He was then transferred to a new prison at Andersonville, Georgia. The South had difficulty in taking adequate care of its prisoners because they lacked food, clothing and medicine evern for their men on the battlefield. The North was enraged when they learned of this, but if the South could not obtain these necessities, there was no way they could give the prisoners better supplies.

The Andersonville Prison was the most dreaded of all the Southern prisons because of the conditions there. As many as 30,000 Northern prisoners at a time were crowded into a leg stockage that enclosed only 16 1/2 acres.

While Alexander was confined there, "Providence Spring" broke out of a dry hillside. Up until this time, the only water the prisoners had was obtained from a stream that flowed through the prison from the Confederate camp to the north. The rebels polluted the stream in every way possible and the Union prisoners had to use the water, no matter how filthy it was. When "Providence Spring" broke out, the prisoners made a rush for the clear, clean water and the guards, thinking there was mutiny in the camp, fired on the prisoners and a great number was killed.

Andersonville Prison was in operation less than a year and nearly 14,000 prisoners died there. One historian of Andersonville says that on an average, thirty-five prisoners died each day and were loaded on wagons like cord wood and taken to the cemetery.

Alexander was held prisoner there for twelve months, until the end of the war. His Prisoner of War Records in Washngton, D.C., show him paroled at Jacksonville, Florida on April 28, 1865. He then reported to Annapolis, Maryland (date not given). He was transferred to Camp Chase, Ohio on May 15, 1865, where he reported on May 19, 1865. He was then send to the Provost Marshall in Columbus, Ohio, on May 22, 1965. His records state that he was discharged by reason of expiration of term of service at Wheeling, West Virginia, on June 5, 1865 (his actual discharge reads June 3, 1865).

While Alexander was in the service, his wife, Sarah, lived in a log house across the road south of her father's home. It was there during the war that their first child, Virginia Elizabeth, was born. This is where Alexander found his wife and child when the war was over. When he arrived, was the first they knew if he was alive or dead.

They had two more children while living in this log house, John William and Mary Sophia.

In 1867, after the country had settled itself a bit, recovering from the war, Alexander and Sarah, along with his parents, brothers and sisters and his Uncle Alexander, moved to Indiana. They rest of the Lydy family settled in and around Tipton County, but Alexander and sarah chose to move their little family consisting of themselves and three small cildred, to Sugar Creek Township of Clinton County, near the little village of Picard's Mills, sometimes called Tailholt.

The first land owned by Alexander and Sarah was purchased in 1867 in Clinton County. They bought it from a Mr. Blackburn and was recorded on November 7, 1867. They paid $1,000 for approximately forty acres.

   Events:

1. Military; August 25, 1861; Company F, First West Virgina Cavalry.

2. Military Service; October 19, 1863; Gainesville, Virgina. captured in action by Confederate soldiers

3. Moved; 1867; Ohio to Sugar Creek Township, Clinton County, Indiana.

4. Moved; 1872; Indiana To Peach Orchard, Clay County, Arkansas.

5. Moved; 1874; Arkansas, returning to Clinton County, Indiana.

   Marriage Information:

Alexander married Sarah Ann Elizabeth Hargrave, daughter of Herbert Hines Hargrave and Millicent Oliver, on March 7, 1861 in Uniontown, Fayette County, Ohio. (Sarah Ann Elizabeth Hargrave was born on May 8, 1843 in Bowersville, Greene County, Ohio, died on October 17, 1907 in Kingsland, Indiana and was buried in Kemp Cemetery, Clinton County, Indiana.)