Henry Autry

Henry Autry

Henry Autry was Richard White's great great great uncle.

Born in 1832, Henry Autry was John English Autry's youngest brother. He was the 4th son of John Autry (son of Captain John Autry of the Georgia Militia in the American Revolution) by his second wife, Barbara ("Bubby") Rebecca McMillian, the widow of James Murphy.

Henry Autry was listed on the muster roll of the Sumter Flying Artillery, 11th Georgia Volunteer Artillery Battalion (Cutts Battalion). He was enrolled as a private in that unit at Americus, Georgia, on 15 May 1862.

Henry Autry is listed in the Compiled Confederate Service Records as "Henry Aughtry" and "Henry Aughtrey". He served with Companies B and D, 11th Battalion Georgia Artillery (Cutt's Battalion Georgia Artillery). The Sumter (County) Flying Artillery was a part of Pemberton's reserve artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia. He was originally in Company D, but a notation on a company muster roll of Company B, dated July 1 to November 1, 1862, indicates that he was "transferred from Blackshear's Company by Gen. Lee". This was a result of Special Order Number 209 by which Blackshear's Company was disbanded and its members transferred to Company A (Ross's) or Company B (Patterson's). The last record of him was a muster roll of Company B dated January and February 1865, in which he was listed as "present". Although Confederate records do not reflect his death during the war, those records are not complete and given the information in the family history noted above, it would seem that he died between March 1 and 9 April, 1865... at the very end of the war. Company B of the Sumter Flying Artillery was overrun while defending battery 27 of the Petersburg line on the Jerusalem Plank Road on the morning of 2 April 1865. There was fierce hand-to-hand fighting in that clash and they lost all of their guns. Henry Autry could have been killed there. Survivors of Company B joined the 4th Georgia Infantry Regiment (Sumter Light Guards) as infantrymen, and fought with them during the retreat from Richmond and Petersburg, at Sayler's Creek, on 6 April 1865. The colors of Company B, Sumter Flying Artillery, were lost in that battle and Henry Autry could also have been killed there. Twenty teamsters and canoneers were detached to defend Fort Gregg in October 1864. These men were killed or captured there when Fort Gregg fell on 2 April 1865. Those men were from Companies A and C, had been there since November 1864, so it is unlikely that Henry Autry fell at Fort Gregg. For a good general description of the confusion of the retreat of the Army of Northern Virginia from the Richmond-Petersburg defenses, see Burke Davis's To Appomattox: Nine April Days, 1865.

The complete citation of the family history is:

Carolyn Autry Joiner and Joe Grant, in:
Jack Frank Cox, ed.
History of Sumter County, Georgia
W. H. Wolfe Associates, Roswell, Ga., 1983
pp. 209-210

I obtained a copy of those and other pages in this book from the Ellen Payne Odom Genealogical Library in the Moultrie-Colquitt County Library, Moultrie, Georgia.

I am also very indebted to information about the fate of the Sumter Flying Artillery in April 1865, in an e-mail received from Brad Coker on 25 October 1999.