Greetings,
Find A Grave contributor Wm. R. Crabb, 48249624,
has made a suggestion to you regarding your Find A Grave memorial for Alfred Hammond.

Their suggestion:
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Hello Debra,
Only recently came across your memorial for Alfred Bracey Hammond. By way of introduction, I am a descendant of John F. Thompson, whose mother was Sarah (Johnson) Thompson Ballard Hammond. According to Sarah Hammond's Mississippi Confederate Pension Application, Alfred Bracey died in 1889 in Texas. Another family member and researcher, Mrs. E. Hick (Mamie Lambert) Smith of Monticello, Mississippi told me years ago that he was ill and had taken the train to Texas to be with a daughter. I am more than satisfied this daughter was Nancy (Hammond) Burns and that he is buried in an unmarked location in Limestone County, Texas. Benjamin Franklin Hammond, son of Bo Bo Hammond, is buried at Eutaw. More than this I am not prepared to speculate.
Sincerely,
William R. Crabb

Dear Debra
Just to follow up: Alfred Hammond served as private, Company I, 38th Regiment Mississippi Cavalry, CSA. He enlisted March 25, 1862 at Columbia, Mississippi and his last Company Muster Roll is dated June 30, 1864. He did not desert. This was the same unit that Abram R. Ballard served in and he also enlisted March 25, 1862 at Columbia, they were well acquainted with each other. Grandmother had married him January 20, 1859 in Marion County. He died July 2, 1863 as a casualty at the Siege of Vicksburg. Before his unit left for the fighting, he was sitting at the kitchen table in their home, when a bird unexpectedly flew in through an open window and crashed into his chest. Grandmother always remembered he considered this a bad omen regarding his future as a soldier. Grandmother Hammond's Mississippi Confederate Widow's Pension Application #14 Pike County, is dated August 14, 1900; Sarah Hammons [sic] of Magnolia, Mississippi. Alfred Bracey was in Limestone County, Texas about a year before his death. This undoubtedly indicates his daughter, Nancy (Hammond) Burns, must have died sometime afterward in 1890 or later.

Dear Bill,
It was a pleasure to hear from you. Your news suggesting, Alfred Bracey Hammond traveled to Texas in 1888 to see his daughter, Nancy, has intrigued me. Nancy gave birth to her last son, William Alfred Burns in 1887, Kosse, Texas. Unfortunately, she does not appear on the 1900 U.S. Census with her husband, John Ellis Burns, and children. Therefore, establishing a guess of death between 1887 and 1900.
Nancy's first born son, James Wesley Burns moved to Roff, Oklahoma sometime between 1900 and 1905 with his wife and children. His father John Ellis Burns and two brothers, Webb Ellis and William Alfred Burns also went along. John Ellis died in Roff, Oklahoma in 1906 from a gunshot wound inflicted by a neighbor. Our family has never been able to find a marked gravesite for either John Ellis nor Nancy Hammond Burns.
However, Glenda Sue Burns Phillips, a 2nd great-granddaughter of John Ellis recently sent me the following email :
"This is my great grandfather. I believe he and Nannie are buried in Limestone County. My uncle that went with Webb Sr and Jr to visit the grave on “Chalk Hill” recently passed away at 81. "
I tried to research this "Chalk Hill" in Limestone county but came up empty. My grandmother, Sudie Leamons, granddaughter of John Ellis told me that after John Ellis's death the body was shipped back to limestone county. However, she was only 6 years old at the time. She remembers the burial but not the place.
Now, my question is why would Alfred leave his wife, Sarah Johnson, in Mississippi. Could it be possible she was with him on that trip and returned home alone?

Debra, nice to hear from you. No, Grandmother Hammond did not accompany him to Texas. And after checking my old notes, he made the trip because his daughter was ill and not himself as I had indicated earlier. My gr gr grandfather, John Freeman Thompson, settled in Limestone County in 1869 and remained there the rest of his life. His wife, grandmother Madie (Burns) Thompson and Grandmother Sarah Hammond corresponded for years. (I have not been able to establish a connection between her Burns family and yours.). My dear Grandmother Crabb, born in her maternal Thompson grandparents' home in Limestone County in 1902, remembered much about this correspondence. Mamie (Lambert) Smith, whose maternal grandmother was a full sister of Grandmother Sarah Hammond, told me that as she and her siblings walked home from school, Aunt Sarah Hammond would be waiting at the gate in front of her house if she had a letter from Texas. As she could neither read nor write they would help. Mamie said the Texas letters were either to or from Madie Thompson or Jourdan Johnson. He was grandmother's brother who lived in Yoakum, Texas and was a Methodist minister.