Henry Seale
J.R. Caps
Tue Jan 9 01:16:27 2001


Hayes, I checked my copy of the Bloomquist booklet and she does not list any rank beside the name of J.R. Caps which would infer that he was a private. I have spoken to Ann in the past about the source for her roster and she confirmed to me that all the names on her roster are directly from the Compiled Service Records and no other source. This no mention of rank on her roster was prbably just an oversight as this occurs several times in the roster.If you will notice, for instance, she lists Willett as a captain even though he was promoted to major in 1864 and the records do show this. I checked again the Compiled Service Records that I have on microfilm for the 40TH Ala. Inf. Regt. and went to the record of J.R. Caps and I confirmed that this is the only record of him listed being this parole on 22 June 1865 given at Montgomery to him as a captain of Company B, 40TH Ala. I again checked my records and confirmed that upon the promotion to major of Captain Willett of Co. B in late 1864, that Lt. Latham was promoted to Captain of this company and according to the writtings of Captain Sprott of Company A and 1st Sgt. Curry of Co. B, Captain Latham was killed at Bentonville, N.C. on 19 March 1865. The writtings of my own great-grandfather, Sgt. Benjamin B. Seale of Co. F state that he was wounded very near where Captain Latham was killed in this battle. I'm back to thinking that this man Caps was either really a late member private that for some reason was not with the army at the surrender and either he wanted to impress someone by cliaming to be a captain or the Yankee clerk made a very erroneous mistake in either his rank or regiment. I also suspect that we will never learn the certain truth in this matter. I am sure that he was not a captain in this company.

• Capps — Hayes Lowe, Tue Jan 9 06:50