Company C, 49th regiment KY volunteer mounted Infantry, UNION ARMY, during the Civil War.
Esom enlisted as a Private on June 2, 1863 for 1 year. He was mustered in at Somserset KY November 3, 1863, or September 19, 1863 depending on which document you believe. He was promoted to Corporal sometime around January of 1864 and was a Corporal through July of 1864. By July he had contracted typhoid fever and was in the Camp Burnside KY military hospital in July and August of 1864. He was mustered out December 26, 1864 at Lexington KY, as a Private. (According to 10 U.S.Code sec. 772: "A person not on active duty who served honorably in time of war in the Army...may bear the title ...of the highest grade held by him during that war.")
His middle initial was B. Some people have recently written online that his middle name was Bert. I haven't yet found any primary documentation proving that, but they are probably right. Here's why I think that: It was common at that time and place to name a first son after his paternal grandfather and a second son after his maternal grandfather. Esom's son Jeptha's second son James Erwin Bryant Sr., was named after his maternal grandfather James Erwin White. And Jeptha's first son was named Esom Bert Bryant. Since he got his first name from his paternal grandfather, there's a good chance he got the middle name Bert from him too.
In the 1992 book "The Bryant Family of Kentucky and Illinois" the late Donald C. Adams incorrectly guessed that Esom was the son of William and Anna (Heaton or Eaton) Bryant, based on the fact that Esom was living with William's son Marion at the time of the 1860 census. A lot of people have copied this misinformation since then.
But Esom was not the son of William. As shown in the pension document, signed by Esom himself and attached to this memorial, Esom states that he was the son of John and "Cenia" (probably a phonetic spelling of Sena) Bryant. Esom's father John Jr. was the aforementioned William Bryant's brother.
As Esom indicates in this pension record, his mother and then his father died when he was young, and so he went to live in the home of Marion (Esom's first cousin.) Other records show that Esom and Marion were in the 49th Kentucky Infantry, Co. C, Union army, together during the Civil War, and that Marion was surety for Esom's marriage bond.
The fact that Esom's father was John rather than William is also corroborated by the 1850 census, which shows Esom in John's home.
Esom was my GG grandfather.
In early March of 2019, someone took the pension document attached here, inexplicably re-titled it "CSA pension," and posted it on Ancestry.com for other people to copy. There is no reason to call it a CSA pension, as Esom, along with several of his cousins, were soldiers in the Union Army and not members of the CSA.
No known photos of my GG Grandfather Esom exist. I've searched exhaustively for decades for such a photo, and if one did exist, I would definitely have attached it as his profile picture here.
Company C, 49th regiment KY volunteer mounted Infantry, UNION ARMY, during the Civil War.
Esom enlisted as a Private on June 2, 1863 for 1 year. He was mustered in at Somserset KY November 3, 1863, or September 19, 1863 depending on which document you believe. He was promoted to Corporal sometime around January of 1864 and was a Corporal through July of 1864. By July he had contracted typhoid fever and was in the Camp Burnside KY military hospital in July and August of 1864. He was mustered out December 26, 1864 at Lexington KY, as a Private. (According to 10 U.S.Code sec. 772: "A person not on active duty who served honorably in time of war in the Army...may bear the title ...of the highest grade held by him during that war.")
His middle initial was B. Some people have recently written online that his middle name was Bert. I haven't yet found any primary documentation proving that, but they are probably right. Here's why I think that: It was common at that time and place to name a first son after his paternal grandfather and a second son after his maternal grandfather. Esom's son Jeptha's second son James Erwin Bryant Sr., was named after his maternal grandfather James Erwin White. And Jeptha's first son was named Esom Bert Bryant. Since he got his first name from his paternal grandfather, there's a good chance he got the middle name Bert from him too.
In the 1992 book "The Bryant Family of Kentucky and Illinois" the late Donald C. Adams incorrectly guessed that Esom was the son of William and Anna (Heaton or Eaton) Bryant, based on the fact that Esom was living with William's son Marion at the time of the 1860 census. A lot of people have copied this misinformation since then.
But Esom was not the son of William. As shown in the pension document, signed by Esom himself and attached to this memorial, Esom states that he was the son of John and "Cenia" (probably a phonetic spelling of Sena) Bryant. Esom's father John Jr. was the aforementioned William Bryant's brother.
As Esom indicates in this pension record, his mother and then his father died when he was young, and so he went to live in the home of Marion (Esom's first cousin.) Other records show that Esom and Marion were in the 49th Kentucky Infantry, Co. C, Union army, together during the Civil War, and that Marion was surety for Esom's marriage bond.
The fact that Esom's father was John rather than William is also corroborated by the 1850 census, which shows Esom in John's home.
Esom was my GG grandfather.
In early March of 2019, someone took the pension document attached here, inexplicably re-titled it "CSA pension," and posted it on Ancestry.com for other people to copy. There is no reason to call it a CSA pension, as Esom, along with several of his cousins, were soldiers in the Union Army and not members of the CSA.
No known photos of my GG Grandfather Esom exist. I've searched exhaustively for decades for such a photo, and if one did exist, I would definitely have attached it as his profile picture here.
