Wilhelm Family Tree

BIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM PINKNEY ENNIS, CSA OF CHAMBERS COUNTY, ALABAMA

BY: Virginia Bell Clements Tuttle, his great granddaughter, Kennesaw Chapter 241 UDC

William Pinkney Ennis, born February 24, 1839 moved to Georgia from Lancaster County, S. C. His parents moved when he was quite small to Chambers County, Alabama. William was 22 years of age when the war between the states started and he enlisted. He was already married with one child and another one on the way. He and three of his brothers heeded the call to "arms" and to defend their Southern Homeland with promises that the war would be over in a few months.

How sad this must have been for the Ennis family to have all four grown sons go off to war. Two of William's brothers did not live to return. One other like himself returned to find his people suffering from poverty and a lack of means to provide for themselves. The slaves had been freed, the men had gone to war and were not home to plant the gardens and money crops. The majority of the people were farmers during the mid to late 1800's. The women and children worked the fields and gardens as best they could with the help of the older men. The court records and census reports indicate that the Ennis family in Chambers County was not a wealthy family prior to the war. They were not large land owners with slaves but were probably living comfortably. William's wife Angeline Yarbrough's parents were large land owners with slaves.

The Muster Record of William Pinkney Ennis tells us however that he was a "waggoner" in th 47th Infantry, Co. I. of Alabama. William enlisted as a Private on April 18, 1862 at Loachapoka, Alabama (about 30 miles from his home). The 47th Infantry was made up largely of men from Chambers and Tallapoosa County. It had one company each from Coosa and Cherokee County. The regiment moved quickly from Loachapoka to Stonewall Jackson's Corps in Virginia. This unit fought largely with the Northern Army of Virginia until after Gettysburg, it was with Lonstreet at Chicamauga but rejoined the Northern Army of Virginia for the rest of the war. The day after Antietam in Maryland in the early fall of 1862 it could muster only 17 men of the 115 with which it entered the fighting with. Except for the battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, which it watched, it seemed to have always been in the thickest of the fighting.

The Muster Rolls show that William Pinkney Ennis was at Cedar Run on August 9, 1862 and in General Hospital No. 2 in Richmond, Virginia on September 30, 1862. He was captured at Chicamauga on September 19, 1963 and received as POW at Camp Douglas, Ill. on October 4, 1963. He was discharged from Camp Douglas on June 13, 1865. He walked back to Lanett, Alabama with only the clothes on his back. He begged food along the way and ate what he could from fields, woods, and streams. He often walked with other released prisoners. No food was provided by Prison Guards or Officials since they were more concerned with feeding their own men than their enemy, the Southern Rebels. His tales of the Prison Camp at Camp Douglas were of bitterly cold winters with very little food and no medical attention. Many died in the Camp.

William's brother John Marion Ennis was also in the 47th Infantry. He was a Hospital Corpman during the War and lived to return home. He was born July 4, 1829 S.C. and died July 23, 1901 in Elmore County, Alabama. His grave in Elmore County has a Confederate Tombstone.

Confederate Memorial Markers have been placed in Oakwood Cemetery, Lanett, Alabama to honor William and his the two brothers who did not return. One brother was James W. Ennis, b. February 16, 1833 Georgia, died September 17, 1862 at Sharpesburg, Md. He is shown in records as a Cook. He was buried at Sharpesburg.

The other brother was Benjamin Thomas Martin Ennis, born April 17, 1844, Harris County, Georgia died July 26, 1863. He was wounded at Gettysburg, Penn. and died a few days later. He is buried in a mass grave at an old barn at Gettysburg. He was a Drummer Boy in Company E, 14th Infantry. He and his brother James were in the same Alabama Unit.

What a joyous homecoming this must have been for William Ennis. He and his wife Angeline Yarbrough had the following six children before she died. After Angeline's death William remarried. He married Jane Broughton Oliver on December 21, 1876
in Chambers County and together they had six children.

William Ennis, father of 12 children died at the age of 71 at his home in Lanett, Alabama. Family
legend says his health was never really good after the war.