Another Drinking Man

There are a number of our ancestors who served in the Civil War, all on the Union side. They lived in Western Maryland and what was to become West Virginia so their sympathies were with the Union even though Maryland and Virginia were slave holding states. The western part of those geographic areas still run contrary to whatever is going on east of them:)

A handful of our Civil War era ancestors were railroad men so they were off the hook as the railroad ran supply lines for the Union into southern states. Others were coal miners and it was coal that fired the railroad steam engines. Presumably they were all left alone as none of them have Civil War service records as far as I can tell, but I'm a newbie here with this genealogy stuff.

One of the half-dozen ancestors who did serve has a fun family story behind him. In a solidly Union family was Samuel Albert House (1832 - 1919). SA House is Mom’s great grandfather on her mother’s side. Now as Mom tells it, Samuel Albert House was quite a drinking man. This habit often got him into plenty of hot water, especially with his wife and her father.

It's reported that he got drunk and went over to Virginia to enlist in the Army of the Confederacy just to be disagreeable. At least that's how the family story goes so I was off to check it out. And it’s true because you can see his enlistment and mustering records in the Army of the Confederacy through Footnote.com!

What you can also see is that he mustered in August of 1861 and deserted by October of that same year. Maybe it took him two months to sober up? Hey, I did mention that he was a drinking man!

Samuel Albert House, date unknown.