Served in Co. D, 9 AL Infantry - Confederate

Son of: Edward Bryant & Mary Ann Juliett Thomason Summerhill
Married Status: Never Married
Contributor: Daniel Bryant "Bryan" Summerhill   

Served
(1) Pvt. Co. K, 7 Ala. Inf., Florence Guards
(2) Pvt. ? Miss. (Roddey's) Cavalry
(3) 1Lt. Co. H, 4th Alabama Cavalry (Roddey's) from Franklin Co. AL -
taken prisoner and released at Nashville, TN 24 Mar 1865 - His
regiment was paroled at Pond Spring in Lawrence Co. AL 17 May
1865.

Son of: Horace Sr. & Permelia Adeline Thomason Summerhill
Married 1st: Mary Agnes Elizabeth Ann Summerhill
Married 2nd: Martha Jane Denton*

*Martha Jane applied for Civil War Pension December 1913 Johnson Co. TX.
Contributor: Daniel Bryant "Bryan" Summerhill

Served in Co. C, 27th AL Infantry - Also served in Co. H, 3rd
Batt'n. MS. Infantry

Son of: Edward Bryant & Mary Ann Juliett Thomason Summerhill
Married: Elizabeth "Bettie" M. Smith
Contributor: Daniel Bryant "Bryan" Summerhill

Served in Co. H, 4th Roddey's Alabama Cavalry

Son of: Andrew & Margaret Carson?
Married: Mary Eliza Summerhill
Contributor: Daniel Bryant "Bryan" Summerhill

Served in Civil War Co. G, 4 Alabama

Son of: Samuel & Elizabeth Burns?
Married: Mary Eliza Summerhill
Contributor: Daniel Bryant "Bryan" Summerhill

Entered the Civil War spring of 1862 at Florence, AL. (company
not shown)  Served until April 15, 1865 when his company
disbanded at Mt. Hope, AL.

Son of: Edward Bryant & Mary Ann Juliett Thomason Summerhill
Marital Status: Never Married
Contributor: Daniel Bryant "Bryan" Summerhill

Served in Co. E, Floyd Legion GA

Son of Sanford & A. Mariah Young Summerhill

Enlisted 8 Mar 1862 Paulding Co. GA - Served in
Co. D, 1st Regiment Georgia Volunteers - Captured
at Clay Village, KY 7 Oct 1862 - Discharged 1865 Greenville,
N.C.?  Applied for pension 1906.

Son of: Warren & Harriet Gober Summerhill
Married: Martha Jane Griggs

Warren Summerhill was pastor of Mt. Tabor Methodist Church
in Paulding Co. GA during the Civil War.  In my 1988 interview with
Raymond Rakestraw, an elderly citizen, he said, "During the Civil War, the
church was used as a hospital.  Lon Hipps (another citizen) told me that when he
was a young boy, he lived close to the church.  He said he would slip up there and
watch.  He said arms and legs were amputated and thrown through the windows.
Wild hogs would grab them and run off into the woods."

Served in 64th Reg. Co. E, GA Vol. Inf. Army of Northern Virginia
C.S.A. Fulton and Meriwether Counties Georgia, Warren Akin
Guards - Pvt. March 1, 1863.  In General Hospital No. 1, Savannah,
GA with fever and bronchitis 25 April 1863.  Transferred to General
Hospital, Augusta, GA same day.  Buried at Newnan, GA.  (Per
Henderson's Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia
1861 - 1865.)

Son of: James & Demaris Summerhill
Married: Martha

Contributor: David Scott Dingler, Woodstock, GA (Descendant)
Scott has a beautfiful home page which includes his Summerhill lineage.  
Please pay it a visit: http://www.mindspring.com/~sdingler

Served in Capt. Gartrell's Company GA Cavalry 

Served in Co. F, 1st Georgia.

Son of: Archibald Porter & Nancy Turner Walden Griggs
Married: Jane Emily Summerhill, daughter of Warren &
                Harriet Jane Gober Summerhill

"My Grandma Jane (Jane Emily Summerhill Griggs), told me these stories.  Grandma Jane and
Grandpa Archie was living, during the Civil War, up a little farther in the county (Cobb Co. GA)
on a big plantation.  The Scott plantation, I believe.  Grandpa had been the overseer before he
went off to war.
When he went off to war, Grandma wouldn't go to his family or hers.  She was independent and
scratched out a living by herself.  She made her a little garden and she did something, somehow, to
get a little corn to make cornbread.  She ate cornbread, vegetables, milk and butter.  That's what she
and Porter lived on.
Porter was real small when his daddy went off to war.  The Yankees came by and Porter, about
2 1/2 years old at the time, opened the door and invited them in.  
'Come in, damn Yankees,' he said.  Grandma apologized for it.  She said, 'He hasn't heard me say
that but he's heard some of the others say it.'
The Yankees just died laughing.  They thought it was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.  Porter
wasn't a bit afraid of them.  
The soldiers said, 'Little Reb, where's your daddy?'  
Porter had never seen his daddy because Grandpa left when Porter was just a baby.  The Yankees
thought Porter would tell them what part of the country he was fighting in.
Porter said, 'My daddy's in the trunk,' and the Yankees didn't know what he was talking about.
Porter ran over and opened the trunk and got his daddy's picture out.
The Yankees didn't bother Grandma and Porter.  They knew she was telling the truth that her
husband was way off up north.  They didn't bother her food.  She didn't have anything except turnip
greens.  She had a cow named Clover Blossom.  If she'd had her cow there, they'd have stolen it,
but she had it hid over on the mountainside.  She kept that cow all during the war.  When Grandpa
came home from the war, he plowed the garden with that cow.
Grandma said to the Yankee soldier, 'I hope you get safely back to your wife and children,' and he
said, 'I hope your husband comes safely back to you.'"

"Grandpa (Archibald Alexander Griggs) came home from the war on furlough.  It was right toward the end of
the war.  As he started back to join his company, the Yankees caught him, but he escaped.  He ran up to
this manor house and there was a huge black woman who was hoeing corn.  It was planted in the fence
corners.  And she hid him...Grandpa was a small man... she hid him under her dress and pretended to the
Yankees that she couldn't hear well.  Finally, they hollered loud enough for her to understand,
and she pointed in an opposite direction and they rode off.  Grandpa had fixed his horse, left his horse
down in some woods.
This colored woman's name was Victoria, and as Grandpa left, she told him she hoped he got safely
away.  He said, 'Tell me your name, I'm going to name my first little girl after you.'  She said, 'It's
Victoria, sir.'  So that's where Victoria came from.  It wasn't from Queen Victoria, it was from that
black woman that hid my Grandpa under her dress to keep the Yankees from getting him.
He got on his horse and he couldn't get back to his own group, so he joined Joe Johnston who was
defending Kennesaw Mountain.  (Cobb Co. GA)  
Grandpa said they didn't even have enough bullets to put in their guns.  They loosened boulders and
rolled them down on the Yankees.  That was just before the end of the war."

"Note:  Archibald & Jane named their first daughter,
Harriett Victoria "Vicki" Griggs.  She was a school teacher.

"I use to visit with Thomas Watson a lot before he died.  He told me a story about one of his
Summerhill uncles who was in the Civil War.  It was really humorous the way Tom told it.  He said he
didn't think this man ever joined the Confederate Army but he had his own gun and his own horse.  And when
they were fighting up around there, Cobb and Paulding Counties (Georgia) area, you know they fought at
New Hope Church and all through there...this uncle would ride to the battle and fight 'til lunch time, then he'd
get on his horse and go home, have lunch and then come back to the battle.  Tom said he didn't think he joined
the Cavalry or he didn't think he was that gung-ho, but he was crisis minded enough that when the fighting
got close, he'd go fight, but when lunch time came, he'd leave and go eat.  The rest of the soldiers would
grumble.  Tom said, 'Well, I guess if he owned his own gun and his own horse, he could go and come
as he pleased."
Note: Thomas Watson Summerhill was the son of William A. &
Sarah Angeline Athey Summerhill of Paulding Co. GA.
Billy Ellis Summerhill is the son of
Dewey Leslie & Margaret Victoria Carter Summerhill of Gwinnett Co.  GA.
Thomas Watson & Billy Ellis are descended from brothers Warren & Jackson Summerhill.
Jackson was killed during the Civil War.

"My grandmother, Floy (Floy Osborn Summerhill) told me about a close relative in the family who
fought in the Civil War.  She told these stories just as clear and never deviated, never changed them.
...she told this story about one of the Summerhill's who had been cut off by the Union lines and they
couldn't get their supplies.  They were supposed to have a battle and they hadn't eaten in a long time.
He (this Summerhill) wrote a letter to either Greenberry's (Greenberry Summerhill) wife or to one of the
other Summerhill's.  It's probably lost by now.  If you could find this letter, it would substantiate this story
and maybe you could find out who he was.
Anyway, they hadn't eaten in a long time.  He (Summerhill) was a very religious man and he prayed that
morning early that God would somehow show them how to find some food or send them some food.
Later that morning, a dove lit on his shoulder on the front lines.  That's what my grandmother told me.
He took the dove and ate it and later that afternoon he was killed in battle.  She kept telling me that this
was a Summerhill.  My grandmother talked about this Summerhill like he was killed somewhere else,
not necessarily in the battle of Atlanta."

"The second story (she told Billy) was when Sherman came down here (Atlanta area).  Her Osborn
family and the Summerhill's would take all their animals off into the woods, deep into the woods and hide
them.  They would hide as much food as they could, either in the house or around on the farm.  Sherman's
troops knew all the tricks.  They came in on one of the Summerhill's and had an ax.  They were mad
because they couldn't find any food in the house.
My grandmother said Mrs. Summerhill had a great big oak chopping block that was hollowed out and
they'd hid a cured ham in that thing.  They (the Yankees) had got mad because they couldn't find any food
and they ransacked the house.  One of the Union troops took the ax and split that thing half way down
and found the ham and left with it.
My grandmother said her family also hid the animals.  She had no names to give me, but she remembered
it was one of the Summerhill's who took the hollow log and put the ham up in it to hide it."

Enlisted 10 Mar 1862 Floyd Co. GA - Served in Co. C, 40th Regiment
Georgia Volunteer Infantry - Army of Tennessee C.S.A. - Killed 30 Dec 1862
at Chickasaw Bayou, MS. (Death also given 19 Sep 1863 Chickamauga, GA.)

Son of:
Married: Mary E. Summerhill, daughter of William Wilkinson & Margaret
                                    Robbins Summerhill

Entered military service 8 Mar 1862 - Homer,
Claiborne Parish, LA. - Served in Co. G, 12th
Regiment LA Infantry.  Prisoner of War - Captured
Nashville, TN 16 Dec 1864. Released 1865.

Son of: William Wilkinson and Margaret Robbins
                           Summerhill
Married: Joanna Elizabeth "Bettie" Adams
Picture Courtesy: Leona White Piland

Entered military service 14 May 1862 - Monroe, LA.
Co. G, 28th (Gray's) LA Infantry.  Was in the battles of
the Red River campaign in Louisiana and many minor
skirmishes.  Was in Louisiana at the War's end.

Son of: William Wilkinson & Margaret Robbins Summerhill
Married: Margaret M. Adams

Served in Co. B, 2nd Batt'n. MS. Infantry (3rd. Lt.) & Co.
B, Inf. 48 MS. Infantry (2nd. Lt.)

Son of: James & Demaris Summerhill
Married 1st: Frances Chappell
Married 2nd: Nancy Moore Mims

"The only records my daddy (William Birdsong Summerhill) had was what his daddy told him.
My daddy use to show James Washington's Civil War papers but they got in such a bad
condition until...well, J. W. wrote a letter about the Battle of Gettysburg and how he was
treated after he got shot.  My daddy rewrote them and back in those poverty stricken days,
which we were all raised up in, he didn't have the proper paper, wrote it on brown paper and
got another piece of paper and made country glue out of flour and water and it all stuck together.
"Well, some of it melted the ink mostly and some of the words passed away, but our daddy wrote
some of them again and finally, well my old maid sister, the oldest kid (Iva), she's in a nursing home there
in Koscuisko, which is the county seat of Attala County, (MS) and what she did with them I don't know.
I think they are mostly all gone...the writing we've still got is the old Bible he wrote, but it's mostly
about his family.  We've got Bible records and births.
"J. W. went through four battles and got the worst shooting up at Gettysburg.  He got caught in the middle
and that's where he caught them Yankee bullets.  Got his shoulder blade busted and about half of his
posterior...they hit him running back.
"He told how he was treated to get well.  Right after he got shot, he said a lot of them didn't get to cross
the Potomac which lasted about three days...the weather was bad.  TheYankees didn't follow up.  All of
them (his company) were advised to be on the absolute alert because the Yankee army would probably
counter attack after that bad charge.  He said, 'they didn't come around, they didn't attack.  I laid out
on the bank with the others and, thanks to the medics, the good Lord and some cow whiskey
and hot towel poultice, it saved my life!'
"When he got well, he walked back to Georgia, well...most of the way.  He never owned a slave but he ate off
the blacks when he came back south, and slept wherever they'd let him sleep, but he got back.  And, he didn't
find his wife...he had three children before he went to war, two of them were boys.  He did find one boy that
had been left with the neighbors.  He walked to Mississippi and bought a little spot of land over there, and
after a few years, he gave five acres of it for a community graveyard and place for a school and Baptist Church.
 The Baptist Church is still there; New Salem.
"He married Nancy Mims after the War...in Mississippi.  That was his second wife.  I've got a good picture
of her.  Got a picture of him, too.  He looks like an adventurous old boy.  Has one of them big black hats
on that's stuck up in the top.  He's got a beard and one of those spangled black ties, too.  I don't have
anything, though, with his Civil War uniform on.  My daddy said somebody asked him once about it and he
(James Washington) said, 'that's all I had to sleep in and all I had to cover me up in the daytime, until I wore
it out.'  He said he occasionally washed it 'cause it was the only one he had.
"The son James Washington found after the Civil War is the first one buried in Salem Cemetery.  The
graveyard was only about 500 yards from the house they were all living in.  He buried his own son and
moulded the tombstone which is still there and got his name on it.  He brought him over from Georgia and
he died of pneumonia when he was 19 years old.  The graveyard gate is always unlocked.  He had
designated it to be a community graveyard so there are blacks buried there but you can tell who they are
because they've got the same size tombstones, a little bigger than a shoebox.  
All the Summerhill's were tall...Uncle Sam was...my daddy was, too, and all of his boys and girls were tall."

"When James Washington went off to war, he left behind a wife Frances, and six children:
Sarah Catherine, Ellen Frances, Alice Dora, James Nebraska, Charles Samuel and
Cora Lee Summerhill.  Sarah Catherine died at the home of her grandparents, William Wilson
and Sarah Buffington Chappell, where she had been looking after them in their old age.
When Kate died, grandmother (Ellen Frances) took over that duty.  She always told me that
the house was haunted after Kate died and after the (Civil War) soldiers were placed on the
porch and in the halls of the old house...with most of the soldiers dying there, leaving 'great
blood stains' in the wood which could not be removed.
Sarah Buffington Chappell was an invalid.  When the Yankee soldiers came by their home
(located on the road between Marietta and Atlanta, GA) on Sherman's famous march to the
sea, the soldiers allowed Sarah to stay in bed while they ripped open the feather beds
throughout the house.  She may have had some valuables in the bed.  They had nothing but
a little bit of gold which GreatGreatGreatGrandfather William Wilson Chappell put in an iron
pot and buried in the hen house.  There are a few stories of the astrocities but the nicest
story was that William Wilson outwitted the Yankees!"

Confederate Battery on Mississippi River at Vicksburg

Served in the Confederacy - Enlisted 16 Aug 1862
Thompson's station in Co. B, Holman's Battalion,
Partisan Rangers, TN and Co. G, 11 (Holman's) Cav. - Taken
prisoner and released at Nashville, TN 21 Dec 1863

Son of: William Jr. & Lethe Cardwell Summerhill
Married: Martha E. Matthews

Served in the Confederacy - Co. F, 1st TN Cav. and
Co. C, 7th TN Cav.  He was captured and held as a
Prisoner of War.

Son of: James Alexander & Sarah E. "Sallieann"
             Sypert Summerhill
Married: Mary Ellen Rankin

Pvt. T. J. Summerhill        (Family Connection Unknown - Could be same as
    b                                                               Thompson Anderson Summerhill above.)
    d

Enlisted in Civil War 16 Oct 1862 Murfreesboro, TN., Co. D, 11th (Holman's)
TN Cavalry and was captured.

Enlisted in Civil War 1861 in Co. K, First Tennessee Cavalry.
Was a prisoner for five months.

Son of: Horace Dickinson & Eliza Summerhill Rainey
Married: Viola Virginia Wilkinson

Served in 1st Co. I, 38th Virginia Infantry - "Confederate Guards" -
Organized at Mecklenburg Co. 20 Jun 1861.  The Company later
became 2nd Co. G, 14th Virginia.

Son of: Charles Jr. & ? Summerhill
Married: Martha

Daniel Bryant "Bryan" Summerhill

I wish to thank my cousin Bryan Summerhill for his contributions to the Civil War Page.
His research enabled me to correctly identify the companies and regiments in Alabama.
Bryan has contributed to several Civil War sites on the Web and is a Civil War
Re-enactor in Lauderdale Co. AL.   He's Member/Adjutant, Sons of Confederate Veterans,
Col. James E. Jackson, Camp #1763, Waterloo, AL.   A member of the 27th Ala. Inf. Honor
Guard and Reenacting unit and Co. F, 4th Alabama "Roddey's" Cavalry reenactors, and
"when his arm is twisted," Co. D, 1st Ala. Cav., U.S.   Also, Bryan suggested the title for
my Summerhill Military site.   Bryan302@juno.com  

View his military service at:
../MilitaryNonWar/MilitaryNonWar.html