The Charlestown Retiement Community, which is now my home, has a number of clubs and activities. One of these is the Civil War Roundtable. Sometime in the near future I hope to give a brief presentation to the group telling them about my own family’s Civil War experiences. Much of the information I present here has been included in previous blog posts. Nevertheless, I decided to share it with you in the same form I will share with the Roundtable.

My name is Edwin Saunders (Sandy) Jordan. I was born in 1929. My father Robert Saunders (Sandy) Jordan was born in 1873, thus was 56 years old at the time of my birth. My mother, AnnieBelle Rives, was 38.

My maternal great-grandfather, Robert Rives, moved from North Carolina to Arkansas in the late 1850s and he died there in 1861.  His youngest son, my grandfather Edwin Rives, was born in Arkansas in 1859, so he was an infant during the war.  After the war, his mother returned with him to North Carolina to be with family.  Those were hard times in both states – indeed, for all the South.   

My paternal great-grandfather, Elijah Jordan, was born in Halifax County, Virginia, in 1804.  He married Martha Faulkner in 1825, and they were the parents of two daughters and six sons.  My grandfather, Clement Jordan, was the fifth son, born in 1841.

It appears that Elijah Jordan was a fairly prosperous farmer.  In 1860 he had more than 400 acres of good farmland valued at approximately 20,000 dollars, and his personal wealth was estimated to be 32,790 dollars.  Though he was not fabulously wealthy, those dollar amounts were impressive for those times.

Elijah’s family was totally involved in the Civil War. 

Elijah’s four eldest sons all volunteered for service in the Virginia cavalry.  They joined the Black Walnut Dragoons, Company C of the Third Virginia Cavalry Regiment, Army of Northern Virginia. John Jordan served as company commander during most of the final year of the war, and he suffered wounds at the Battle of Yellow Tavern.  His brother Joseph was wounded at Athens Station and brother William was wounded in the attack on Wilson’s Wharf (Fort Kennon).  Robert, the oldest brother, emerged from the conflict relatively unscathed.

Clement Jordan, my grandfather, enlisted in the Danville Grays on April 23, 1861, four months before his 20^th birthday.  The Grays had just been formed as a company of volunteers, and a few weeks later they were incorporated into the 18^th Virginia Infantry Regiment, Army of Northern Virginia.  Clement served as an enlisted man in Company B.  

In July 1861 Clement saw action at Manassas in the First Battle of Bull Run. His next major military engagement was in the defense of Richmond during McClellan’s 1862 Peninsula Campaign.  During or following that seven-day battle Clement contracted Typhoid Fever and was hospitalized in the Chimborazo military hospital in Richmond.  After recovery he rejoined his regiment.  July 3, 1863, saw Clement forming with other members of the 18^th Virginia for an assault on Federal lines at Gettysburg.  His regiment was part of Garnett’s Brigade, Pickett’s Division, and that relatively fresh and unbloodied division was chosen to lead the charge on Cemetery Ridge.  My grandfather thus had the honor of being involved in that historic event, though I’m quite certain he would have preferred to be elsewhere.  The upshot was, Grandfather started up the hill, got shot, and then came back down the hill.  It was a serious arm wound, but somehow he evaded capture and avoided an amputation.  After Gettysburg, Clement was out of action for several months, but by year’s end he had rejoined his regiment.  Over the next fourteen months Clement witnessed and experienced the slow death of a once proud army.  Rejoining his regiment in December 1863, he was promoted to corporal and soon was involved in heavy fighting in places like the Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor as the Confederates were slowly pushed back toward Richmond. During the final months of the war the 18th Virginia was occupied in defending the Petersburg/Richmond perimeter, and on March 31, 1865, Clement suffered his second major wound in the fighting at Hatcher’s Run (more commonly known as the Battle of White Oak Road). The day after Clement was wounded, the Confederate line was breached at Five Forks, and the retreat to Appomattox began.  Clement was apparently evacuated with other Confederate wounded on April 1^st or 2^nd, perhaps on the same train that took Jefferson Davis west to Danville; and he once more evaded capture. Nor was he caught up in the last agonizing days of the Army of Northern Virginia, ending with its surrender on April 9.

Clement’s younger brother, Samuel, only 14 when the war began, had also joined the 18th Virginia near the end of hostilities and was captured at Sayler Creek a few days before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

Father Elijah served in the home guard, and on June 25, 1864, he and other members of the guard joined Confederate regulars to successfully defend the Staunton River bridge from a Federal attack.  Elijah was 60 at that time.

The records show the family’s total involvement in the conflict. Elijah’s name, along with the names of his five sons also buried at this place, is inscribed with those of other Confederate veterans on a memorial erected in the Oak Ridge Cemetery, South Boston, Virginia.  Another son, Joseph, moved to North Carolina and was buried there. 

Somehow Elijah and his six sons all survived the war, though four suffered battle wounds. Considering Civil War death rates, the survival of the Halifax County Jordans was amazing.  Close cousins in North Carolina lost two of four adult sons.   Cousins in Tennessee lost three of five.  The sons of Elijah certainly lived up to the Jordan family motto, Percussa Resurgo (When Stuck Down, I Rise Again).

Elijah died in 1885, in the sixtieth year of his marriage to Martha.  Martha died the following year.

Clement recovered from his wounds (though his use of one arm was permanently impaired), and in 1869 he married Loula Slate of Danville.  They had five children.  My father, Robert Saunders Jordan, born in 1873, was their only son.  Clement died in November 1909 at the age of 68, almost 20 years before my birth.

As one looks at the Civil War record of death and destruction, great-grandfather Elijah’s family was among the fortunate ones.  Nevertheless, the Civil War had a devastating effect on family fortunes.  Remember, in 1860 Elijah had more than 400 acres of good farmland valued at approximately 20,000 dollars.  His personal wealth was estimated to be 32,790 dollars.  In 1870 Elijah’s remaining farmland was valued at 6,000 dollars and his personal wealth at 500 dollars.  As with so many other Southern landholders, his money and former way of life had “gone with the wind.“

POSTSCRIPT: From the above abount it might appear that I am well informed about the lives of Clement Jordan, his wife Loula, and my other Civil War family members. Unfortunately, that is not true. My father and I were close, but he never talked to me about his parents, uncles, aunts and cousins; and I asked him no questions. I have always regretted that failure. Almost everything I now know is based on the research of my son, Stuart McGuire Jordan, a conscientious and accomplished genealogist.