Confederate Heritage & History Month - Part 3

On top of Love Mountain, just a few steps off the Blue Ridge Parkway, and about 3 miles from my home (as the crow flies), rests the mortal remains of my 3rd Confederate ancestor and great-great grandfather, Morris P. Coffey. G-G-Grandpa Coffey lies on ancestral land in a crude family cemetery with 16 other family members. Wounded twice during the war, Coffey, like my G-G-Grandpa McGann, served in the 51^st Virginia Infantry. Also, like McGann, he owned no slaves. He was simply fighting against an invading army that threatened his home and family. Perhaps Coffey and McGann fought side by side, never suspecting they would one day have a common descendant. (Morris Coffey is also the great-great grandfather of my dear wife. Yes, we are cousins! It’s an Appalachia, Scots-Irish thing don’t you know.) Coffey was captured at the Third Battle of Winchester and taken to Point Lookout in Maryland. He was released in a prisoner exchange in March of 1865 and admitted to Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond on 18 March with “chronic dysentery.” He was there in the same hospital where my G-G-Grandpa Crutchfield died 10 days later on 28 March. Perhaps they also knew met, again, neither of them knowing that they would one day have a great-great-grandson write about them. Coffey was, unlike Crutchfield, one of the fortunate ones at Chimborazo. One out of every ten Confederates brought to Chimborazo with diarrhea or dysentery died. The overall mortality rate at Chimborazo was 20%--actually good by 19^th century standards.

Three Confederate ancestors: Coffey, Crutchfield, and McGann. Two of them, Crutchfield and Coffey, were both wounded and both were POW’s in camps with deplorable conditions. Crutchfield ultimately died from his wounds. McGann served in the same unit as Coffey, Coffey was in the same hospital as Crutchfield. All 3 were brave men. All deserve my honor and respect.

Two of them—Coffey & McGann—are buried within a few miles of my home, both resting on top of wind-swept peaks in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The other ancestor—Crutchfield—lies in a common grave in Richmond marked only by the number “91.”

April is Confederate Heritage and History month and I honor the service and sacrifice of my Confederate ancestors.

"It is indeed a glorious thing to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors." ~ Phaedrus