To: Tom Elmore
Thanks very much. I will use your detailed information when I return to Gettysburg next Summer and spend a couple of days getting a more accurate fix on what things could have happened to the 44th Ala, where, when and in what sequence. Also, I have scrutinized a high quality photo taken very soon after the battle of Gettysburg, and the scene appears, to me, to be of the Western face of LRT, near its top. It is strewn with a wooden box, small cartons, some tins, and rock breastworks are present. This is a sketchy description of it, but do you recall such a photo, and might it have been where I speculated?
Paul and Levi Kyzer were brothers from a large Alabama family of Kyzers, and they fought in the 44th Ala at Antietam; Paul died near LRT at Gettysburg, Levi at Gaines Mill in 1864. There was little left in Alabama for their siblings and parents after the war, so some of the Kyzers picked Jacksonville, Ark. for their new homes. Had they not done that, there would have been no Lena Kyzer born, to become my Dad's Mother, and I consequently wouldn't exist either. My existence is fatefully linked to the deaths of Levi, and to Paul's, near Devil's Den on July 2, 1863. Thanks again.