Thomas Bradshaw is my paternal Grandpa's maternal Grandpa. Got that ;) Thomas was born in Lewis County Mo. in 1843 to Smith Bradshaw and Elizabeth Chrisman Bradshaw. To elaborate on his connection, his daughter, Annie, married Marion Campbell, and their son was my Grandpa Charlie.
Cencus records would indicate Smith Bradshaw was farming in MO in the years Thomas grew up. He and Elizabeth had 11 children. Thomas was one of the youngest if not the youngest. When the civil war broke out, Thomas joined the Confederacy. He would have been only 18 years old.
I had heard we had a confederate in our family, and my cousin confirmed he was the one, so I started digging. The whole thing makes me kinda sad really, for all involved. I have very strong feelings about the confederacy and then the first records I found on Ancestry.com were POW records. The Confederates didn't keep alot of records, especially not the outfit he was part of I'd imagine. Let me elaborate. The POW records list his unit as Porters, in Marion County, MO. Now I feel pretty comfortable associating our Thomas with this regiment as Joseph C Porter , was actually Thomas' cousin. Porter was tasked with recruitment and bushwacking in Northern Mo where he lived. So it makes alot of sense. The records are less than perfect but it looks like Thomas was captured Oct 10, 1862 and looks to have been in custody till June of 1863, spending time in Gratiot Street Prison and Alton Prison, neither of which I would wish on anyone.
I don't really know what happened to him during the rest of the war. I do know he met and married Nancy Catherine Hopkins in Rockingham County Va (I have requested those records), in Oct 1865. They moved back to Mo. Together they had 8 children, 5 of whom survived to adulthood. They farmed. Later in life he became a Judge. He passed in 1910.
I am attaching a copy of a civil war POW record, his obituary, and his death certificate
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