In transcribing Emily Weaver's Civil War letters, I find a number of references to her cousin, Nannie Wilson, and Lt. Carroll H. Wood, whom Nannie married in an impromptu wedding on Oct. 7, 1863, at her step-father, William Byer's home, Catalpa Hall, near Batesville, AR. The "Batesville belles" were a welcome site to the Missourians in the winter of '62 and spring of '63, and Slayback and Edwards wrote of the pleasant days there at "Camp Nannie Wilson" established by Shelby. Nannie was reported to be the prettiest, richest and most exciting belle of them all. She had been engaged to someone else early in the war, but now suddenly married Wood as he was literally on the fly, the Federals a few hours behind.

There are several diaries and letters that give a detailed account. One legend that accompanies one account is that Frank and Jesse James were among the men that were riding with Wood, and that one of them served as best man. I found this hard to believe although I had found a reference to Quantrill's being in Batesville in the spring of '63.

In researching Carroll H. Wood, I find a Lt. Carroll Wood with a military commission serving as deputy marshall, provost guard in the MSG in 1862. Prior to that I found Carroll H. Wood in 1859 in the Denver area. He and others signed a memorial petition to the President basically requesting Colorado be made a territory. In 1859 and 1860, he is involved in some shootouts in the area, and his name simply reported as Carroll Wood. He is called an outlaw and linked with Ki Harrison there. He faces a murder charge, but is aquitted by a single vote, and banished.

I also find a Capt. Carroll Wood in this reference also: Jenkins, Paul Burrill, 1872-. The Battle of Westport,. Kansas City, Mo.: Franklin Hudson Publishing Co., 1906.

page 78

"Jennison's men took position before West port and continued the fight until a late hour, one company of artillery firing uninterruptedly with their particular and much-beloved new brass twelve- pounder howitzer until its incessant reports attracted the attention of Brigadier-General Shelby himself. He called to Colonel Sidney D. Jackman, commanding Jackman's brigade of his division, and to Colonel F. B. Gordon of Gordon's Missouri Cavalry, and said: "Jackman, do you hear that gun? I 'm tired of its d--- d noise. Go over there and take it !" Immediately these two officers gathered portions of their commands and made a flank movement, concealed by a convenient corn-field, and suddenly charged out upon the busy gunners and captured them and their gun. With them were taken two Kansas artillery flags, seized by Captain A. C. McCoy and Captain Carroll Wood of the Fifth Missouri Cavalry, and these officers promptly hunted up General Price on the field and presented him with these trophies."

Edwards writes "Wood lives to-day, a factor in the great peaceful body of thriving citizens, the past a memory that cannot die, and his acts therein fashioned of soldierly episodes from Lexington, 1861, to Newtonia, 1864."

Are these all one and the same man, the Lt. Carroll H. Wood who married Nannie Wilson? After the war, he served as two years as AG of the AR State Militia, returned to Batesville where he "represented some of the best firms in St. Louis and Cincinnati." He died in 1905.

Thanks for any help.
Sue Moore