My Sporadic Journal

         Ansellum D. Denson was a man who went to war and couldn’t prove it. At least that appears to be the case. He is my great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side of the family. There are several documents attached to his application for Civil War pension regarding his service in Smith’s 2nd Regiment, Missouri Cavalry formed in Cedar Co., Missouri. However, it seems no one of authority was willing to verify his service. As an old man seriously in ill-health, he applied for assistance in January of 1907. There is no indication he received the pension benefits due him for his service, in spite of a number of attached affidavits attesting to his service. His doctor, W.R. Butler, testified that he was suffering from aortic insufficiency and general cardiac weakness. In addition to his own declaration of service in the Confederate Army, he received Ex-Parte testimony from Mrs. Rosa Ferell and W.P. Wells, who personally attested to their knowledge of his service.
         At the conclusion of the War the United States government assumed all official authority in the defeated South, which included the disposition of all Confederate War records. In his senior years Ansellum resided in the State of Texas; Therefore, it was the Texas Comptroller who requested verification from the US War Department in Washington DC for his Confederate Army service records. Needless to say, oftentimes these Confederate documents were incomplete, misfiled, destroyed, or non-existent from the start. This certainly appears to be the fate of Ansellum’s records. It also may not have helped that we find his name listed in documents of that time as also being A.D. Denson, Anson Denson, and Anslum Denson. You see, he would not know the difference since he could neither read nor write. In any case, the US War Department in Washington DC quickly returned a response stating, “The name A.D. Denson has not been found on the rolls, on file in the office of Company A, 2nd Missouri Cavalry, C.S.A, nor has any record been found of the capture or parole of a man of this name and organization.”
         The genealogy water gets a little murky for Ansellum during the Civil War years. It appears that Ansellum, under the name of Anson Denson, was in fact a prisoner of war during the Civil War. Records of Gratiot Street Prison, St. Louis, Mo., indicates Ansellum was scheduled for transfer to Alton Military prison along with 247 other military prisoners. The record indicates he was captured within his home county of St. Clair, Mo., on May 6, 1862, was received at the Gratiot Street Prison on August 7th of the same year, and there is no entry as to when he was discharged. Nevertheless, Ansellum stated in his pension application that he spent a total of four years as a Confederate soldier. Much of that period of service was spent enduring the hardship and deprivation often visited on captured enemy soldiers. It was a service of which a bureaucratic government would not acknowledge.
         We believe Ansellum died soon after his request for benefits, for he does not show up in the 1910 US Census with the rest of his family. There is no record of the date of Ansellum’s death. Obviously, it was after 1907. The only record of his death is a headstone at a gravesite located in Purdy Cemetery, Lindsay, Oklahoma. The inscription shown on the headstone has no dates, just these words, “Grandpa Denson, father of Ed Denson.”

         Ansellum D. Denson was a man who went to war and couldn’t prove it. At least that appears to be the case. He is my great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side of the family. There are several documents attached to his application for Civil War pension regarding his service in Smith’s 2nd Regiment, Missouri Cavalry formed in Cedar Co., Missouri. However, it seems no one of authority was willing to verify his service. As an old man seriously in ill-health, he applied for assistance in January of 1907. There is no indication he received the pension benefits due him for his service, in spite of a number of attached affidavits attesting to his service. His doctor, W.R. Butler, testified that he was suffering from aortic insufficiency and general cardiac weakness. In addition to his own declaration of service in the Confederate Army, he received Ex-Parte testimony from Mrs. Rosa Ferell and W.P. Wells, who personally attested to their knowledge of his service.
         At the conclusion of the War the United States government assumed all official authority in the defeated South, which included the disposition of all Confederate War records. In his senior years Ansellum resided in the State of Texas; Therefore, it was the Texas Comptroller who requested verification from the US War Department in Washington DC for his Confederate Army service records. Needless to say, oftentimes these Confederate documents were incomplete, misfiled, destroyed, or non-existent from the start. This certainly appears to be the fate of Ansellum’s records. It also may not have helped that we find his name listed in documents of that time as also being A.D. Denson, Anson Denson, and Anslum Denson. You see, he would not know the difference since he could neither read nor write. In any case, the US War Department in Washington DC quickly returned a response stating, “The name A.D. Denson has not been found on the rolls, on file in the office of Company A, 2nd Missouri Cavalry, C.S.A, nor has any record been found of the capture or parole of a man of this name and organization.”
         The genealogy water gets a little murky for Ansellum during the Civil War years. It appears that Ansellum, under the name of Anson Denson, was in fact a prisoner of war during the Civil War. Records of Gratiot Street Prison, St. Louis, Mo., indicates Ansellum was scheduled for transfer to Alton Military prison along with 247 other military prisoners. The record indicates he was captured within his home county of St. Clair, Mo., on May 6, 1862, was received at the Gratiot Street Prison on August 7th of the same year, and there is no entry as to when he was discharged. Nevertheless, Ansellum stated in his pension application that he spent a total of four years as a Confederate soldier. Much of that period of service was spent enduring the hardship and deprivation often visited on captured enemy soldiers. It was a service of which a bureaucratic government would not acknowledge.
         We believe Ansellum died soon after his request for benefits, for he does not show up in the 1910 US Census with the rest of his family. There is no record of the date of Ansellum’s death. Obviously, it was after 1907. The only record of his death is a headstone at a gravesite located in Purdy Cemetery, Lindsay, Oklahoma. The inscription shown on the headstone has no dates, just these words, “Grandpa Denson, father of Ed Denson.”