Samuel James Webb, Ancestor Wednesday

A few weeks ago I talked a bit about Leroy (Larry) Francis Webb.  Samuel James was his father, from Maryland.

I include this as a Sepia Saturday post, though it doesn't have a thing to do with the theme of snow.  Sorry about that, maybe I can get on theme again soon.  But if that's of interest to you, please go to this link, then go to the bottom of the page and see what all those other people have posted.  It's really interesting! 

He had been born Jan 28, 1827, in Vienna, Dorchester County, Maryland.  In the Census of 1850 he lived with 2 other young men also by the name of Webb, in Baltimore in a home of a married barber with 5 children, named Phelan.  Samuel was 21, and his probable brothers were James, 22, and Edward, 17.  Their occupations were listed as Machinists.   They all were born in Maryland.

DeWitt County, Texas

In 1856 he married Ellen Ann Delemater, also from Maryland, but by then they lived in DeWitt County, Texas.  He was 29 and she was 14.   They raised their family there.  My grandfather's father was their eldest son, Leroy Francis Webb, born 11 months after their marriage.

Flag of Wauls Legion

Samuel Webb fought for the Confederacy in Company B, as a private, in Waul's Texas Legion..  (see Thomas Waul)

...in the spring of 1862 (Thomas Waul) recruited Waul's Legion, for which he was commissioned colonel on May 17. He and his command were captured at the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, but he was soon exchanged. Waul was promoted to brigadier general on September 18, 1863, and given command of the first brigade, formerly that of Brig. Gen. James M. Hawes, of Maj. Gen. John G. Walker's Texas Division, which he led during the Red River campaign of 1864. After the battles of Mansfield (April 8, 1864) and Pleasant Hill (April 9, 1864), Waul and his brigade were transferred to Arkansas, where, at the battle of Jenkins' Ferry on April 30, 1864, they helped to repulse federal major general Frederick Steele's attempted invasion of Texas and where Waul was wounded in action

Waul's Texas Legion Monument, Vicksburg National Military Park

I don't know how much Samuel James Webb was involved in these battles.  For a man from Maryland to fight in the Confederacy it seems he must have really believed in some of the values of the south where he had made his home.

Of their 8 children, the three born in 1859, 1864, and 1866 all died between 1865 and 1866.

Samuel died August 15, 1877 and is buried with his wife and at least one daughter in the Old Clinton Cemetery, DeWitt County, Texas.  His wife Ellen Ann was only 34 when she died in 1876.  Her youngest son, Samuel Jr. was born in 1876, but I don't know the month.  He lived to be 16.

Old Clinton Cemetery, SJW Cemetery according to a relative who took the picture