A Flag of Truce, a Grieving Mother, a Family Heirloom

How Harmless Fiction Becomes Accepted Fact: A Case Study

Reaching Out for Distant Branches

I am working on a family history of our Grayson ancestors which, as with any project, must have some limitations. If one tries to branch out too far, the narrative becomes less focused and coherent. However, as I have a special interest in the U.S. Civil War, one paragraph from an 1877 family manuscript caught my attention:

“Benjamin Grayson, the third, married a Miss Brohaugh [sic] of Loudoun. He left a large family and five estates [in Virginia]. His sons were the late Dr. William Grayson of New York, the late Dr. Robert O. Grayson of Stafford, and Dr. Richard O. Grayson of Loudoun, and two (2) daughters, the widows, Mrs. Bettie Carter and Mrs. [Mary] Stevenson [sic], of Loudoun County. … Alexander and Richard Grayson of this branch of the family, were officers in the Confederate States Army and died in battle.^“1

The author, like me, was not a direct descendant of these particular Graysons. Like me, he had access to some family documents and had opportunities to interview older relatives. Like me, he did not have all the information, but was secure enough in his sources that he could tell the stories with some degree of confidence. Because he researched and wrote what he knew, I could begin to dig more deeply from there, using tools he never had.

Gems and Junk

The science of genealogy always proceeds from the known to the unknown. The more you learn – names, dates, places, occupations, and events your ancestors lived in and through – the deeper the research can go. Online genealogy resources have made research easier in general, though more challenging in many respects. As at yard sales and antique shops, for every authentic gem you unearth, mounds of semi-credible but poorly sourced junk must be sorted through.

A Family History Mystery

Our 19th century cousin who wrote the manuscript misspelled two names and omitted a fourth son of Benjamin Grayson and (Nancy) Bronaugh: George Mason Grayson, the father of Alexander. Otherwise, everything he wrote was factual. I’ve spent much of the past few months researching this branch of the family and have discovered a great many gems, especially in two contemporary diaries. I’ve filled in family trees and discarded a heap of semi-credible but ultimately inaccurate information in the process. As I dug more deeply into the life and death of Alexander, I ran smack into a knot it took a concerted effort to unravel.

The Pewter Cup

Type “Alexander Grayson Civil War” into a search engine and you’ll learn he served as Captain of Company “F,” 8th Virginia Infantry Regiment, and that he was killed at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. One of the top hits seems to be a true gem, an auction house listing for a pewter cup that belonged to Alexander:

“Pewter Mug Inscribed to Captain Alexander Grayson, 8th Virginia Infantry, Killed at Gettysburg During Pickett’s Charge, July 3, 1863.
[T]he 8th Virginia Infantry as part Brigadier General Richard Garnett’s Brigade, joined in Pickett’s fateful assault. Grayson along with almost 90% of the 8th Virginia would become casualties that day…. Young Grayson was the nephew of Union General H. F. Clarke, who, following the captain’s death at Gettysburg, had his body transported to the Grayson Plantation (now the Mellon Estate) in Fauquier County, Virginia, under a flag of truce, for internment. Family tradition states that his mother, General Clarke’s sister, removed this cup from his casket before the burial, the script engraving on the underside of the cup, “Capt Grayson 8th Va.” being unquestionably period. Acquired by the consignor directly from the Grayson/Clarke family…. A sad memento of one American military history’s most gallant, but ultimately doomed, assaults.”

A Lovely Story

A gem it is, assuredly, and a lovely story. Unfortunately, it is a lovely story that will be a headache for genealogists for generations to come. I do not blame the auction house, though they are a little late in the narrative to qualify it with “Family tradition states….” I don’t blame the family, who were probably repeating the story as it had been told to them by grandmother – who by the way hadn’t been there herself. Can I really blame the volunteer who copied the story onto Alexander’s Find a Grave memorial? Or the dozens, if not hundreds, of family genealogists who have taken that information and posted it to their online family trees for others to enjoy?

A Young Man and His Sweetheart

George M. Grayson (1795-1858) married the widow Ann Luisa (Fitzhugh) Rose (1798-1860) around 1830. Her two daughters, Mary Jane Rose (1823-1898) and Anna Henry Rose (1825-1875) were ages 10 and 8 when Alexander Grayson was born. Anna married widower Nathan Loughborough (1813-1889) in 1849. The July 1860 Census lists Alexander as a 27-year old farmer living near Upperville, Virginia with his 17-year old brother and 62-year old mother Ann, who died that very same month. The Loughboroughs with Mary Jane lived nearby. Alexander had already seen combat at 1st Manassas and Ball’s Bluff when another neighbor, a relative of Nathan Loughborough’s first wife, writes in her diary:

(Mon. Dec. 9, 1861) “Alex Grayson came over to dinner from Uncle Nathan’s, he had spent the day and night before with us. He looks very well considering his past illness… Alex & Anna have been together almost all the week and it does me good to see how happy they are, she placid and quiet, every feature expressing her great content, while he looked so handsome and manly that I did not wonder at her being so much in love.” (Sat. Dec. 14, 1861) “Alex Grayson has been over a great deal, he will leave for camp on Monday, so I have given Anna and himself the parlor that they may see as much of each other as possible before he leaves.” ²

The Road to Gettysburg

It is unclear to me exactly who Anna is, and though I have a good guess, in keeping with the spirit of the post I won’t speculate here. The 8th Virginia Infantry Regiment, in which seven Grayson siblings/first cousins served, was sent in March 1862 to defend Richmond, where they saw intense action at Williamsburg and Seven Pines. In June they were called upon to charge downhill and attack a fortified Union position near Gaines’ Mill. Among the 56 regimental casualties that day was Alexander’s 24-year old cousin Lt. Richard Grayson, Jr., killed in action just as the 1877 manuscript said.

By the summer of 1863, Alex’s regiment had been through 2nd Manassas, South Mountain, Antietam, and Fredericksburg, but missed Chancellorsville. Flush with victory, the Confederate Army took the fight to the North, where they met the Union Army on the outskirts of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The Ring of Truth

“[T]he 8th Virginia Infantry… joined in Pickett’s fateful assault. Grayson along with almost 90% of the 8th Virginia would become casualties that day….” So reads the auction house listing, and so ends the factual portion of the description. The rest reads:

“Young Grayson was the nephew of Union General H. F. Clarke, who, following the captain’s death at Gettysburg, had his body transported to the Grayson Plantation… under a flag of truce… Family tradition states that his mother, General Clarke’s sister, removed this cup from his casket before the burial.”

It’s equally sweet and sad. A country divided. A tragic death. A loving uncle. A flag of truce. A grieving mother. But wait… more than one thing doesn’t ring quite true.

The Unraveling

It took a lot of research to unravel the knot. Briefly, I scoured the ancestors of supposed siblings Ann Luisa Fitzhugh Grayson and Union Gen. Henry Francis Clarke (1820-1887) and found absolutely no connection. The obituary of Gen. Clarke’s 97-year old widow Belle Taylor Clarke (1838-1936) gave me a glimmer, as it listed a granddaughter named Rose Loughborough Clarke. The “flag of truce” family story is really quite lovely. Unfortunately, it’s nearly all fiction. The facts:

• The maiden name of Alex’s mother was Fitzhugh, not Clarke.
• Ann Fitzhugh Grayson died in 1860 and could not have been at her son’s 1863 burial.
• In 1892 Louise Loughborough (1866-1962), daughter of Alexander’s half-sister Anna Henry (Rose) Loughborough, married the son of Mrs. and the late Union Gen. H.F. Clarke. Only then were the two families connected.

Again, the family story was surely handed down and repeated in good faith, with no intention to deceive, so no blame is being cast here, though it does pose an ongoing problem for genealogists. So what really happened?

• Gen. Clarke was assuredly at Gettysburg in July 1863, but he did not know young Capt. Grayson. Why should he?
• Anna Henry Loughborough sorrowfully inherited her brother Alex Grayson’s personal items, including the pewter cup.
• Her daughter Louise L. Clarke never knew Alex, but the Gettysburg connection with her new mother-in-law surely led her to remember and secure the family heirlooms for their offspring.

Not quite as lovely a story, but interesting nonetheless. Find a Grave accepted the corrections I suggested. Hopefully, it will minimize similar headaches for future family historians.

¹ Grayson, John Breckenridge Jr., The Grayson Family (unpublished manuscript, 1877) pg 4

² Dulany, Ida Powell, In the Shadow of the Enemy: The Civil War Journal of Ida Powell Dulany, (2009, University of Tennessee Press)