Lillian Henderson's Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia lists David and James E. Autry in Company H, 64th Georgia Infantry and James C. Autrey and John E. Autry in Company G, 64th Georgia Infantry. The listing of James C. Autrey is only a cross-reference to "See private Co. G." To the best that I can tell, there were only three actual individuals represented by the four names.

The John E. Autry listed by Henderson is clearly my great great grandfather John English Autry. The Compiled Confederate Service Record uniformly lists him as J. E. Autry. The first name John was no doubt derived by Ms. Henderson, from my great great grandmother's Georgia Confederate soldier widow's pension file.

I saw no reference to James C. Autry or Autrey in the Compiled Confederate Service Records (the spelling of the last name seems fairly well irrelevant because variant spellings such as Autery, Autray and Awtrey and even Aughtry and Ottery are pretty well interchangeable in most records I have seen). Nor do I see but one reference in the Compiled Confederate Service Records to James E. Autry and it appears to be an error actually referring to my great great grandfather, as it relates to a soldier alive in 1864.  According to the Compiled Confederate Service Record, James (no middle initial) Autry died on 20 May 1863 in the Confederate Hospital in Quincy, Florida.  There is a Compiled Service Record for James E. Autry showing him as hospitalized in Jackson Hospital in Richmond in 1864; however, the name is clearly an error because that record fits nicely into a series of records of  J. E. Autry showing him to be in the same hospital in Richmond at the same time and with the same diagnosis... and all long after James died in Quincy in 1863. That death is definite as there is original correspondence in the file concerning claims of the widow. Unfortunately the ravages of time have dealt harshly with the original documents. Portions are obliterated or missing and the rest are very hard to read.  However, it is clear that they refer to James.  So it appears that Henderson's entire published information on James Autry is based on that one hospitalization record and is completely wrong.  She failed to pick up on the earlier record of the death of James.  I have visited the Confederate Cemetery in the old Quincy graveyard near the Confederate Hospital (now a library) and it offers no help.  There are no markers for any of the burials associated with the hospital and no records of burials are known to exist, although SCV's Finley's Brigade Camp (of which I am a member) is interested in finding such records.  The plot is surrounded with an iron fence and other than one headstone for a Confederate soldier buried there long after the War the only marker is a generic one for unknown Confederate soldiers 1861-1865.

David Autry's record indicates that he deserted from the trenches at Petersburg in on 3 July 1864 and took the oath of allegiance at Fortress Monroe on 6 July 1864.  His desertion was one of several at that time from the ranks of the 64th Georgia, which had only recently arrived at the Richmond/Petersburg defenses.  Note was made of the event in the Northern press.

Henderson states that pension records indicate that David Autry died of consumption (tuberculosis) at home on 29 May 1869.  I have not seen any pension application by or on behalf of David Autry.  Although he deserted and took the oath, standard Union procedures would have been to put him in a prisoner of war camp.  If he was imprisoned, I have not yet been able to determine where.  I have visited David Autry's grave in the Old Autry Cemetery in Sumter County.  It is marked.

An e-mail message from a descendent of David Autry, received on 9 December 1997, confirmed that David, James and John English Autry were in fact brothers.

I am still interested in learning if  W. J. Autry of Company F, 64th Georgia Volunteer Infantry, was also related to these Autrys, and if so how.

Richard White
Tallahassee, Florida
18 November 1997
Revised 9 December 1997
Revised 8 August 1998