Married abt 1848 in either GA or AL (unconfirmed):
- Rebecca C Jones - abt 1830-1920
Their offspring:
- James Sturgeon Garner - 1849-1925
- George Washington Garner - 1853-bef 1920 - unknown
- Andrew Jackson Garner - 1854-1926
- John Elija Garner - abt 1859-1926
____________________________________________________

Elija P Garner – biography:

Born: abt 1831 in South Carolina, possibly Anderson County.
Died: 16 Sept 1862 in a CSA field hospital near Tunnel Hill, Georgia

Elija was one known son of most likely Samuel Garner, born about 1800 in South Carolina, and most certainly a Gassaway/Gasaway mother, possibly Elizabeth Gasaway, born about 1806 in South Carolina. Neither parent can be absolutely proven, but with both records and DNA results, a reasonably strong circumstantial case can be made for both. Samuel was the eldest son of Eli Garner, born in Orange, North Carolina about 1774, and Mary Margaret "Polly" Pepper, born in Pendleton, Anderson Co., South Carolina about 1780 and for whose father Samuel was likely named. Eli Garner is reasonably well documented and is descended from the founding Garner/Keene lineage in the Americas, originally of colonial Virginia and Maryland. Elizabeth appears one daughter of Henry Gassaway, born in 1767 in Virginia, and his likely second wife, Rachel Griffith, born in 1786 in probably Maryland. The Gassaways, the name anglicized from the Welch Gaswaie, first settled in Anne Arundel, Maryland in the 17th century, later descendants moving to South Carolina.

Elija had one known brother, Gasaway Garner, born about 1828, also in South Carolina. His first name is also recorded incorrectly in most all records. It was common at the time to give offspring a first name as the mother's maiden name. Census data suggests that there were also other Garner siblings but none can yet be identified with any certainty. The death years and locations for Samuel and Elizabeth also remain unknown. Some Samuel and Elizabeth Garners are found individually in later census reports, some possibly widowed, but cannot be verified as these individuals.

Elija's middle initial, P, is from family records. With his highly likely grandmother, the P is assumed to have stood for Pepper, but is unconfirmed. The spelling of his first name is from his own signature on a period letter but all records note the more common spelling, Elijah, in error. At least one brother-in-law, in period letters, refers to him by the nickname "Lige".

He is first found by name in the 1850 US census in Talladega, Alabama with his wife, Rebecca C Jones Garner and infant firstborn, James Sturgeon, born in December of the previous year. They were likely only married in 1848-9, both still in their teens, and Rebecca may have been somewhat older than Elija. Immediately next door to Elija, brother Gassaway is living with his wife, Rebecca's sister, Mary Jones and their firstborn infant daughter, Nancy E(lizabeth?) also born in 1849, perhaps named for both of her grandmothers. Both Elija and Gasaway are noted as "laborers" and Elija and Rebecca are noted as having attended school which might have been recent; no other Garner or Jones family members are similarly noted that year.

By 1860, Elija's and Rebecca's family had grown to four sons and they owned their own forty acre farm in Bluff Springs, then in Tallapoosa County, Alabama in the southernmost foothills of the Appalachians. Records, period receipts, and family correspondence provide a glimpse of their lives. They own only one horse, but have four mules, four milk cows, and other livestock, later beef cattle, and grow Indian corn and oats. Elija travels downriver to the then river port of Wetumpka, Alabama, served by steamboat from Mobile, to buy such basics such as nails, molasses, and "bunches of cotton", one trip's total in June of 1860 twelve dollars and change, a not insignificant sum at the time although this appears to have included items purchases for other family and neighbors . Per another period letter, Rebecca's mother Nancy still spins her own wool from the family sheep. The Garner farm is valued at $200 plus $60 worth of farm implements, and $390 in livestock, all totaling $650; a very modest farm. Gasaway lives nearby, and his family has grown to two sons and two daughters, one named Rebecca Jane, for two Jones sisters. He is now noted as a "mechanic", a broad term at the time implying working for another in a skilled trade such as blacksmithing among others. Also living very near Elija and his family are two Pepper family relatives from South Carolina and brother-in-law Aaron J Jones who is now married to Tabhitha C Garner, almost certainly at minimum a cousin of Elija and Gasaway, perhaps a half-sister. Her given name is also consistently misspelled in most records.

After the Civil War began, Elija enlists as a private in Company I, 3rd Regiment, Georgia Calvary on May 16, 1862 at Columbus, Georgia, not far from his home, and brings his own horse, later valued at $250. With him, two of Rebecca's younger brothers, and two of her sisters' husbands also enlist and all five would serve together in the same unit. Brother Gasaway had already enlisted in another unit as had a third of Rebecca's brothers-in-law, her sister Jane's husband. By August his unit is bivouacked at Camp Randolph, Georgia, south of Atlanta, has seen no action, not yet been fully armed, the payroll is late, and the camp conditions are abysmal with crowding, "incessant flies", inadequate sanitation and a tainted water supply. Elija writes to Rebecca complaining of both boredom and conditions in the camp and advising her on running the farm in his absence, cautioning her about counterfeit money and telling her not to sell beef "to strangers". He is also sending her what money he can; ten dollars noted in one letter. By August 17th he has contracted "camp fever"...typhoid. Despite his illness, he makes the march with his company to Chattanooga, Tennessee arriving late in the month and writing home of the 29th, but is almost immediately sent back from the line and admitted to a field hospital outside Tunnel Hill, Georgia by the 31st. Rebecca is advised by letter by one brother-in-law and told "in haste" to write to Elija as soon as she can. That letter appears to have taken almost two weeks to reach her.

A moving letter was written by Rebecca to Elija with added notes from her father and mother, dictated to her, and dated September 24, 1862. An apparent missing letter appears to have been received earlier telling them he was "better", and might be returning to Atlanta. Rebecca misses him greatly and is hoping to travel to Atlanta to see him. This letter was never mailed, or mailed and later returned unopened, as Elija had died in the field hospital on September 16th and word had not yet reached them. He had never fired a shot in anger, had served only five months, and was only about thirty-one years old. His horse was then stolen and sold by another soldier although a later attempt was made by one brother-in-law to get the money returned to Rebecca...outcome unknown. He had given what money he had to the officer in charge of the field hospital before he died to send to Rebecca, fourteen dollars. His clothes were also sold afterwards and that money also sent to her. There were no personal effects noted, no watch, or other, and unfortunately none of the letters Rebecca had written him were returned, so all those also died with him. His older brother Gasaway Garner had died in the Chimborazo field hospital in Richmond, Virginia, also of typhoid the previous July, at about thirty-four years of age. He is today in a shared marked grave in Oakwood Cemetery, adjacent to the former site of the field hospital.

The field hospital where Elija died was almost certainly the historic Varnell House outside Tunnel Hill, built in 1847, the only known field hospital in use there at the time. It changed hands several times later during the war, used as a field hospital or headquarters. It survives today, restored and incorporated into the new Varnell Senior Center. According to the Tunnel Hill Historic Society, the soldiers who died in the hospital in that time frame were buried in the Old Foster Cemetery in Tunnel Hill. Following the war, the firm of Scott & Lyle of Dalton, Georgia was contracted by the Georgia Memorial Association to remove and reinter soldiers remains from all over Georgia to the CSA cemetery in Marietta, among them ninety from the Old Foster Cemetery, Elija's remains of sixty-seven identified of the ninety included. The records from the Tunnel Hill Heritage Society record him as "E. Garner", a private of a GA regiment, but nothing further. The ninety were removed and placed in wooden boxes aboard railway cars on Friday evening, July 16, 1869, then "transferred" to Marietta on Monday, July 19th, the actual date of reinterment likely shortly thereafter, but unknown. The firm completed their work on July 28, 1869 having reinterred 1,126 soldiers remains and were paid the contract amount of $1,427.70...a little over a dollar and a quarter for each.

It is unknown if his widow and children ever learned of his reinternment in Marietta, or for that matter, any of his descendants until research over the last seven years, and a final confirmation by record only in June of 2020.

No record of Elija can today be found in the Marietta Cemetery records. He is likely now in a mass grave there with so many others marked only as "unknown". By the end of war every known Jones daughter that had been married when the war started had lost their husband...five in all, and left with twenty fatherless children, eight of them Garners, and one of those my great grandfather.

Allan Garner – Rev: 20 May 2021.

Many thanks to contributor and cousin/collaborator Carol Bush for first jointly creating this memorial and making a special trip to Marietta to check for records and photograph the Unknown marker there. Also many thanks to Dave Thompson of the Tunnel Hill Heritage Center who confirmed Elija's name as among those removed from Old Foster and reinterred in Marietta.
_________________________________________________________

Additional link: Elija's brother Gasaway Garner