Private, Company A, 28th Regiment, Texas Cavalry

Although the marker gives 1838 as his birth year, census records indicate Stephen H Oates was born in Alabama in February 1844. In 1906, he gave his age as 63, which would make his birth year 1843/1844. He was a son of Mary and James Oates. The Oates family was living in Paxton, Shelby County, by 1854.

On February 19, 1862, Stephen and his older brother Jesse enlisted, both serving as privates in Company H, 11th Regiment, Texas Infantry (Roberts'). Stephen was discharged because of a disability on April 4, 1862, and Jesse died in the war in 1863. On March 15, 1863, Steve rejoined, as Private in Company A, 28th Regiment, Texas Cavalry, at Shelbyville, Texas, for 3 years or the war. He served until near the close of the war when he was wounded and sent home. On his Confederate Pension application, dated September 1906, he said he had been very feeble for 18 months. He suffered from cancer of a face wound received in the mouth during the war, from a gunshot, and from debility from age as well as rheumatism.

Stephen married (1) Amanda "Mandy" King, also born in Alabama. Mandy died in 1871 and by 1880 Stephen was married to (2) Margaret Pierson, born in Alabama. Her sister Mary was living with the couple, along with children James, Henry R., and John C. The couple had 4 more children by 1900.

Margaret died in 1910 before the census, when 33-year-old John C. Oates was living with his widowed father. Sons Calvin, and his family, and Hulon S. were living next door. Hulon was killed in action in France in WWI, and his body was returned for reburial in Sardis Cemetery.

Sources:

1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910 Censuses, Shelby Co, TX

Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, NARA, http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/regiments.cfm (accessed Feb 20, 2008)

Stephen H. Oats, Civil War Service Records, fold3

S. H. Oates, Confederate Pension Application No. 17227, Paxton, Shelby Co, TX