John L. Stinson (1818 - 1878)

Born 2 May 1818 in Sumner County, Tennessee, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Nancy Coleman (Hammock) Stinson — married 6 Dec 1840 in Sumner, Tennessee, United States

Died 9 Jun 1878 at age 60 in Macon County, Tennessee, United States

Biography

John was born in 1818. He was the son of Alsey Stinson and Rhoda Smothers. He passed away in 1878 and was interred in Macon County, Tennessee on his farm, in the Stinson Family Cemetery. John enlisted in Henry B. Day's Company, which was composed of Sumner and Macon County men and organized in mid-December, 1861, nearly nine months after the Civil War began. Day's Company became part of McKoin's 55th Tennessee Infantry Regiment on Jan 30, 1862, and fought at Shiloh in April, 1862. However, John L. was not with them at the time because he was listed as a deserter on Feb 15, 1862, before the 55th had seen any action at all. He may have decided that he was too old for the rigors of soldiering, being 42 yeas old at the time, or he may have just seen the handwriting on the wall, because on that same day, Fort Donelson, just down the Cumberland River from Sumner County, fell to the Union troops of U.S. Grant, with 15,000 Confederate soldiers surrendering. Nashville soon fell and the Sumner/Macon County area of Tennessee became part of the earliest Southern territory to be occupied by Northern forces. Many Rebel soldiers from the area deserted over the next several months, apparently feeling that their services would be better used protecting their own families than by being chased all over Tennessee by superior Union forces. Some of these men were captured and imprisoned by the Union Army; some eventually returned to serve with other units, and some just dropped out of the war completely. No information was found concerning John L. Stinson's later war experiences, if any. The family was told that John L. Stinson was killed by a runaway team while he was taking a load of wood to town.^[1]

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/87820475/stinson

Sources

1. ↑ Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 01 October 2018), memorial page for John L. Stinson (2 May 1818–9 Jun 1878), Find A Grave Memorial no. 87820475, citing Stinson Cemetery, Macon County, Tennessee, USA ; Maintained by Dorothy Stinson Boyd (contributor 47815039) .

• Stinson, Jim. Stinson Family Bible Records. [1]