Liberty County
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Company A, 59th Georgia Volunteer Regiment (Infantry)
Company D, 17th Georgia Regiment (Infantry)
John Joseph Barton (1842-1896) is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Rock Bluff. He was born August 27, 1842 in Paulding County, Georgia, son of John Wilkes Barton (1819-1884) and Martha Ann Stocks (1822-1893). His father was a farmer and owned several slaves. In the early 1850s John J's parents moved to Clay County, Alabama, but by 1858 John J was living in Decatur County, Georgia, where he married Sarah Elizabeth (Hearn) Sloan (1839-1870), the young widow of Samuel Sloan (1829-1857).
Just two months after the birth of his 2nd son, John J enlisted with Company A, 59th Georgia Volunteer Regiment (Infantry) as a Private. He was admitted to the Ocmulgee (Confederate) Hospital in November of 1863, complaint "cripple". In March of 1864 he was transferred to Company D, 17th Georgia Infantry in exchange for John T. Rich. (John J is also recorded as a member of Company G, 17th GA INF.) John J was captured on June 1st, 1864 at Gaines Mills (the Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia). He was sent to the Camp Rathbun POW camp in Elmira, New York. The prison camp consisted of a 30-acre plot of ground surrounded by a twelve foot wall with a rampart near its top and on the outside of the wall. John and his fellow POWs soon renamed Elmira's prison camp "Hellmira." It was said to have been the worst prison camp in the North. At war's end, prisoners received railway passes and money enough to get home. John J was released on June 16th, 1865 and made his way home to Decatur County.
His 3rd son and a daughter were born during the next few years, but about 1870 his wife Sarah died. The children were sent to live with her sister and brother-in-law, Allen and Nancy (Hearn) Sloan (Allen being the brother to Sarah's first husband, Samuel Sloan). For reasons unknown, John J never reclaims his children and they are raised by the Sloan's. In 1877 he gets remarried to Mary Stringfellow in Colquitt, Miller County, Georgia, and they have four children between 1878 and 1887, all born in Georgia. In Apr 1895 the family moves to Liberty County, Florida, where John J dies less than a year later. After John's death his widow Mary moves to Gadsden County with her youngest daughter, Mary Elizabeth Barton, who married Daniel Faircloth on May 31st, 1902 in Liberty County.
In 1908 Mary Barton (widow of John) applied for a Civil War related pension (15 pages) while living in Liberty County. Mary died sometime after 1930 in Gadsden County.
Eldest son Alonzo HC Barton married Cora Lee Owens in Liberty County on January 2nd, 1902, and is also buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, as is 2nd son, Lonnie, who died on the same date as his brother Alonzo.
Pension Application Nr. A03621 (Click to search and view at the Florida Memory Project)
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