History often suggests that Confederate soldiers in the Civil War were totally engaged in fighting the war supporting states’ rights and the South’s “peculiar” institution of slavery, but it was not always that cut and dried for those living in those times.
A good example was Robert C. Garland Jr. who was born to Robert C. Garland Sr. and Sarah A. Barrick of Syringa in Middlesex County in 1840. Robert Jr.’s war years are detailed in the book, “The Remarkable Ancestry of Jane Garland Norton Medlin Burton of Middlesex County, Virginia.”
The book speaks to generations of Jane Burton’s family going back to Charlemagne in the 700s. It was written by Burton’s late husband Harry. Jane is the daughter of Alvah Lorena Garland and Albert Horace Norton. Horace Norton was a Deltaville/Urbanna success story. Born, raised and lived his entire life in Deltaville, Mr. Norton founded what would become Norton Food Company in Urbanna in the early 1950s. The business went on to become a major employer in Middlesex County into the 1990s.
Robert enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army in Urbanna in 1861. He was part of the local Company H of the 55th Virginia Infantry of the Middlesex and Essex volunteer militia. Early duties had him as a guard at Rappahannock River guard stations located throughout the county to watch for Union movement on the Rappahannock.
Robert was promoted to sergeant in 1862 and fought bravely for the south in the early battles of the war. He was captured at the Battle of Gettysburg and in July 1863 sent to Fort Delaware Prison located on Pea Pod Island on the Delaware River. About three months after his arrival, Robert agreed to join the Union army and served with Company E of the third Regiment of the Maryland Volunteer Calvary.
By the time he mustered out with an honorable discharge at Vicksburg, Mississippi on Sept. 7, 1865, he had risen to the rank of sergeant. He returned home to Middlesex five months after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse.
He married Amanda E. Topping of Syringa and died in 1886. Amanda died in 1931 and for 45 years after Robert’s death she received a Union pension for her husband’s service in the Union Army.
It was not always clear cut even within the ranks of the southern army that the war was a worthwhile cause. Robert C. Garland Jr. and his wife’s pension were a testimony to that!
It happened right here in Rivah Country!
