Samuel Webb at Seige of Vicksburg MS -2gg

 This week I'm focusing on my Booth Family tree

Samuel James Webb born Jan 28. 1827

My great great grandfather.

Here' a post about him. And here's a post about the home in Vienna, Dorchester County Maryland which was once owned by Webb families.

I've posted about Samuel's wife (and their children's birth/death dates) a while back, HERE.

I've got some interesting photos that I don't have on any of these posts...about the Siege of Vicksburg MS, (May 18 – July 4, 1863.) I'm not a Civil War historian, and rely upon Wikipedia a lot. But these photos are saved on my Ancestry site about great great grandfather Samuel Webb, who I believe was there.

Women and Children at the Siege of Vicksburg, MS As it was a city as well as a fortress on the Mississippi River, it's understandable that families were together. But often wives did travel with their soldier husbands. I don't know about Samuel and his family.

"Bombproofs" - and the Shirley House - 1863 Siege of Vicksburg MS.

"During the siege, Union gunboats lobbed over 22,000 shells into the town and army artillery fire was even heavier. As the barrages continued, suitable housing in Vicksburg was reduced to a minimum. A ridge, located between the main town and the rebel defense line, provided lodging for the duration. Over 500 caves, known locally as "bombproofs", were dug into the yellow clay hills of Vicksburg. Whether houses were structurally sound or not, it was deemed safer to occupy these dugouts. People did their best to make them comfortable, with rugs, furniture, and pictures." from Siege of Vicksburg

Pemberton officially surrendered the Confederate army (about 30,000 men who had been sick or starving) on July 4 to Gen. Grant of the Union.

Grant gave them clemency rather than trying to ship the prisoners north and feed them. Of course many were sick, starving, and perhaps injured, so they went home in the meantime. Paroled by mid-July, the members of the Waul's Texas Legion reorganized in Houston and were assigned to duty protecting the Texas coast in the region of Galveston.

Samuel Webb had been a Private in Company B of Waul's Texas Legion which fought under Pemberton at Vicksburg. He had been 33 when he joined them in 1862. 

Hand colored lithograph of battle of Vicksburg

Samuel was a merchant of dry goods in the 1870 Census, in DeWitt County Texas. His wife, Ellen Delamater Webb died in 1876 at age 34. He died in 1877 at age 50. His 4 youngest children were put in guardianship with his oldest son, Larry F. Webb (L. F.) who would be come my great grandfather.

This post belongs to the Barbara Booth Rogers Family Tree. Photo shows Mataley Mozelle Rogers, and her mother Mozelle Booth Miller, and my sister Mary Beth Rogers.