Thank you for your response. Jacob was my Greatgreat grandfather. According to my grandmother, Thelma Higginbotham Cunningham) and great uncle, George Higginbotham (his grandchildren), they went home to Moore County after the Battle of Raymond, MS and took mules back to Chickamauga. While leaving, the US Provost Marshall's troops (may have been local homeguards) who were coming to arrest them for not reporting and signing an oath of allegiance arrived at the homeplace, and Jacob shot one dead.

After leaving for the Chattanooga area, their families were severely harassed in retaliation. After Chickamauga and before Chattanooga, something less than half of the 41st voted to quit. Jacob and Isaac were among those who left when their father who was deliverying mail between the 41st and Franklin County reported the harassment. According to my grandmother they had to walk back and stay hidden from the US officials. They never to our knowledge signed an oath of allegiance. As a result of the killing and the subsequent harassment, they were engaged in a bloodfeud that lasted for at least a decade.

When I was at Chickamauga last week, a Park Historian pulled up the records for Isaac and Jacob. Both were shown as having deserted at Chattanooga but he had a record I have never seen before showing that Isaac was present at the end of the war when the 41st was dissolved. Regretfully, I did not get a copy or the reference. I thought I did but he apparently did not copy it for me. Isaac applied for and recieved a pension in Alabama. Also, family lore is that he returned to duty and that Jacob stayed behind and with another brother and their cousins, the VanZandts, formed an irregular local patrol in the Marble Hill area to protect against bushwackers. One of the VanZandts was killed by bushwackers in August of 1864 and Jacob, his father and brother wounded. I will try to find Jacob's pension application and the Park record.

Thank you for your interest.

Vann