Today we continue our celebrity connections to the Civil War.
(If you missed part one or two, feel free to read up.)
No matter where they were born, it seems to me like all celebrity ancestry either leads to the southern United States or to Eastern Europe. Any Yankees out there?
At the age of 23, John Gilbert McKean, great-grandfather of Michael McKean, served the Confederate States Army as captain of a State Troops company in early 1861. By November of that year he joined Dawson’s 19th Arkansas Infantry and was again commanding officer of a company. Later in the war he served as captain of Company D in Witherspoon’s Battalion. And, word is that he finished up the war serving in an obscure regiment called the 4rd Trans-Mississippi Cavalry.
The Cherokee Legion was a state guard unit in Georgia. Jacob Stroup Rhyne, 3rd great-grandfather of Ashlee and Jessica Simpson, served as a private in Company B at the age of 46 from July 1863 to January 1864. Two of his sons served as well, one dying from injuries sustained in battle shortly after arriving back home.
Jason Ritter‘s great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Ritter served as a 2nd Leiutenant under future stateman A. W. Terrell in the 37th Regiment of the Texas Cavalry. Two of Benjamin’s brothers also served the Confederacy.
Eighteen year old, James Henry Ritter, mustered into Company F, 10th Texas Dismounted Cavalry in September 1861. He surrendered with his company at Citronelle, Alabama in May 1865 and went home to Texas.
Older brother, William A Ritter, was a private with Company C, 28th Texas Cavalry. He died in April 1864 at the age of 31 in Walnut Hill, Alabama leaving behind a wife and seven small children.
For more celebrity connections to the Civil War be sure to follow me on Twitter
and check out the hashtag #CW150.
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