Optional page text here. Samuel Tucker

Samuel Tucker

Sam Tucker that the records show enlisting in Company L of the 18th Texas Infantry Regiment was my great-great grandfather. Sam was the grandson of George Tucker, a revolutionary war soldier that lived to be well over 100 years old. Sam came to Texas, Angelina, County, from Marion County, Alabama ca 1850. With Sam were his wife Polly (Mary Mills) Tucker, his daughter Lottie Anne, his Mother, Nancy Paschal, his Mother in law and father in law. I believe at least one brother was in the group as well as Polly's brothers. The Mill's brothers did not settle, but went on to Indian Territory. Sam became my great great grandfather because his daughter Lottie Anne married John Reynolds, and was the Mother of Isaac Reynolds. Isaac and Vickie May Reynolds were the parents of my Mother, Muriel (Reynolds) Owens. I am Charles Owens of Houston, Texas.
I enjoy family history, Texas history, and Civil War history. Sam furnishes me with a bit of all of it. Here is what I think I know of his Civil War History, it comes from bits and pieces on the Internet, The Texas CSA pension files, visits to a local genealogy library, and of course asking questions of family members:
A major point of interest is that the voters of Angelina County voted "not" to secede from the Union, although all the other deep East Texas counties did. I think that a lot of these people came from Northwest Alabama, where Union sentiments remained very strong. The 1st Alabama USA Calvary from that area has a lot of the same names as some of the 18th Texas. Were families fighting families?
Sam was born March 22, 1822, and was already 39 years old when the war started. On his Texas CSA pension application he claims to have served from sometime in 1861 to the end of the war. The earliest enlistment date I find is April 25, 1862, and that is with his neighbors, joining Company L of the 18th Texas Infantry being sworn in by W. B. Ochiltree. I am told that Company L became Company K of the 14th Texas Infantry. I find a reference to him in Company K of the 14th Infantry dated Oct 31, 1862 "went home on a sixty day furlough the last of July by permission of Col. Ochiltree".
Sam applied for a veteran's pension in 1899, and was turned down due to " property owning". On his application he gave Company F 18th Texas as his unit, however the Company letter and the regiment is smudged as if some changes were made. He applied again in 1902 and was approved for a pension. This time he gave his unit as Company F, 17th Texas regiment. I found a Private Samuel Tucker in Company I of the 17th Texas Calvary. This Sam appeared on a roster of Confederate soldiers captured at Fort Hindman, Arkansas Post Jan 11, 1863, then again on a roll of prisoners at camp Douglas, Illinois, and on a register of General Hospital of Petersburg, Virginia April 21 1863, complaint Debritis. Remarks were "paroled prisoner", and "furloughed sixty days"
I really have nothing to say that Sam Tucker of Company I of the 17th Texas Calvary is my great great grandfather, but I do know that the 17th Calvary became dismounted and was known as the 17th Texas Calvary Consolidated, Dismounted. In the 17th Texas Calvary, Dismounted Company K, I find Private Samuel, Tucker sworn in at Angelina County by W.B. Ochiltree. I have no idea whether Sam's neighbors were with him through all his unit changes, or if he was sent to different units after leaves and furloughs.
Sam and Polly share a common but impressive stone at "Old Gann Cemetery" on US 69 a bit northwest of Lufkin, Texas there is no military marker. Family heirs still live on the land that Sam and Polly settled as Texas pioneers. The Gann Cemetery has a lot of stones that bear the same last names as some of the members of the 18th Texas Infantry.
Grave site located in Gann Cemetery about 7 miles north of Lufkin, Texas on U.S. Highway 69.
Source:Charles Owens

Texans in the Civil War
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