George:

I'm trying to document as many graves as possible of Confederate Patriots in the 5th Brigade of the Mississippi Division, SCV. This is a 17-county area in SE MS. I am also posting their service records (when verified) to find-a-grave. I want folks to know that they have these Confederate kin in their family trees.

In the course of the research, I have run across a few men who either claimed to have served in the 8th Battalion Consolidated MS Infantry or who logically would have finished up the war in that unit after consolidation in NC in April 1865 but whose service in that consolidated unit at war's end I have been unable to confirm.

I am thinking that maybe part of the problem could be that the National Archives simply did not microfilm part of the 8th Battalion Consolidated MS Infantry's service records, as happened with at least one other MS command -- the Brookhaven Light Artillery.

I may be completely mistaken, which would not be an unusual happenstance with me!

At any rate, the men I have run across to-date whose possible service in the 8th Battalion Consolidated MS Infantry I am interested in are:

John Wesley Cooley
William Louden Harwell
William Frederick Spell
Francis Marion Watts
Norvell R. Whitehead
Thomas Edwin H. Robinson
Ephraim Thomas Sullivan
Washington Zachariah Roper
Jesse Ellis Sapp
Benjamin G. Walker

Most of these men are from Covington County, MS, and most of them served in the 8th Regiment MS Infantry (pre-consolidation).

Thanks for shedding any light on this (presumed) mystery, and thanks for your hundreds of enlightening posts over the years which have helped so many other seekers after knowledge! -- Jim Huffman, Adjutant, Gainesville Vols, SCV Camp 373, Pearl River County, MS