Deborah
None were Cowards!
Fri Apr 27 13:12:37 2001


Thank you Jim, now my sons will believe me when I tell them they should be more proud of John Bradner...than their father has been...they truly thought maybe he did hide...I know his daughter Kate Bradner lived to be about a hundred and was always active with her Confederate Daughters Chapter in Pittsylvania County, Va. It amazes me how someone like my former husband could just take all his Confederate Heritage for granted. Now, if I can somehow come up with a reasonable explaination why my Confederate ancestors of Kennamers Cove, Alabama got stuck with one cousin Captain John B Kennamer who formed his Union Scouts and Guides right in the middle of the sacred ground of the Cove... My ancestor was Samuel Kennamer (Hans second oldest son,who married Susannah Boshart..of Old Bell Factory...4 Kennamers married into the family of Revolutionary War Vet. Robert Rudolph Boshart's family of old Madison County) As Robert Boshart entered a large plantation on the Flint River and built a dam and mill over the river..Four of the Kennamer boys all entered land nearby...they married into the Derrick (German Clan at Maysville-Brownsboro) and soon spread over into the Indianlands of Kennamer's,Thomas,Wright and Asburn Coves...What really shocks me is that Grandpa Samuel Kennamer owned most of the central part of the Kennamer's Cove...with more than 30 slaves, nearby were Stephen,Jacob and other siblings...all of whom were mostly connected to the Southern cause... One Jacob Kennamer...whose father is not known lived near the old homeplace of Hans..yet he was just said to be a grandson...It was his son John B Kennamer who became the Homemade Yankee with a cause! Capt JB Kennamer along with other kin seem to have maintained some law and order in the Cove... Grandpa Samuel's grandson, David Alfred Derrick married Melvina Perkins and they became grandparents of my Kirkland grandmother. Years ago we did a Confederate Memorial Service for David Alfred Derrick at the Asburn Cemetery in the Sinks of Marshall County.. His brother Wm Wesly Derrick was later with Forrest, while 3 more were with Bushwhacker Johnson..(Two died tearing up the railroad tracks etc in the area..Abraham and Rudolph) What I am now trying to understand is how/why Capt John B Kennamer...who is not a proven child of old Hans Kennamer..could have formed this Union Group...and eventually wide up owning not only Grandpa Hans and Samuel's homeplace, but most of the central part of the Cove. I understand He and his scouts were even awarded payment for their services... I know that most of the origional Kennamer sons contributed sons/sons-in-laws,grandsonsn to the cause...Yet VERYFEW of their gravesites are marked and it seems Their contributions to the cause forgotten..I may publish my own research-collected for twenty years on these families...and tell it my way...from the SOUTHERN POINT OF VIEW...with no disrepect to Cousin JR Kennemer of course... I agree the old animosity of the past should rest in the dust of oblivion ;however,a few unexplained mysteries occurred during that sad time..more family members died in 1863 than within any period. There were at least 50 members of the Kennamer Family wounded or killed fighting for thier beliefs on the Battlefields everywhere...and yet everyone seems to only remember Capt. John B. Kennmer..and his Union Scouts...I know he married Col Smeltzer's widow...but Smeltzer was the one causing so much havoc in the Cove and Tn River area... Why was Asap Franklin Riche of Kennamers Scouts captured and hung near Columbus City, Al..Why and who told old Ben Harris about my Roden (Kirkland) cousins hiding horses at BuckIsland? Did Old Ben Harris then go to Paint Rock and kill cousin Matthew V Riche,CSA and throw him in a river? Why? Did John Rollings avenge this terrible massacre in 1897 by killing Wm Manning and later in 1904,Tom Roden...Oh well, I'm rambling...but it irks me to know of so many honorable Kennamer- Confedrate kin resting at so many different battlesites, while not only their names but cause are forgotten.. Thanks Jim...

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