What a Barganier!

History is the study of people. Either people cause the events we study or events happen to people we study.

          Men drove the RMS Titanic into an iceberg; men, women and children suffered for it. Mount Vesuvius erupted, killing men, women and children. Amelia Earhart and her navigator got lost in the Pacific Ocean; Captain Sullenberger saved a lot of lives when he landed in the Hudson River.

          So it is with the Civil War. We can’t study battles without researching the way people fought them.

          The Barganier brothers of Lowndes County, Alabama have a unique story. There were nine brothers in the family but our focus here covers five of the nine. Those five men served in the Confederate States Army.

          The Barganiers, farmers before the war, served in Company D of the First Battalion of Hilliard’s Legion. Hilliard’s Legion was attached to Archibald Gracie’s Brigade and the brigade was part of William Preston’s division. Gracie’s Brigade gained fame for pushing the Union defenders off the crest of Horseshoe Ridge near the end of the Battle of Chickamauga and other elements of Preston’s Division finished off the remaining Union defenders later.

          A military unit on the winning side of a war that accomplishes everything the men of Hilliard’s Legion accomplished at Chickamauga on September 20, 1863 gains fame. Not so for the men on the losing side.

          And that gives us something to write about.

          The Barganier boys enlisted in May of 1862 at a time when all five were married. By November 15 of that year, Berry Columbus Barganier was dead of disease. He was the only Barganier to die during the war. In fact, Berry Columbus was the only brother to die before 1907.

          Hardy lot, those Alabama men.

          Clabourn Payne Barganier and Hillary Herbert Barganier were both wounded at Chickamauga. Clabourn suffered a severe hand wound and Hillary Herbert was wounded in the foot. It does not appear that either man returned to active duty, but both beat the odds by suffering wounds and surviving the war.

          After the bloodletting at Chickamauga, what was left of Hilliard’s Legion was split into three new units: The 23^rd Battalion, Alabama Sharpshooters; the 59^th Alabama Infantry Regiment and the 60^th Alabama Infantry Regiment. As members of the 60^th, the surviving Barganiers were eventually transferred to the Army of Northern Virginia.

Lawson Brown Bargainer was absent from Chickamauga and was marked Absent-Sick for the fight at Knoxville later in 1863. But he was present at every battle his regiment fought in after that.

Andrew Allen Barganier was absent from Chickamauga but was present at Knoxville. He was Absent-Sick at Bean’s Station, present at Drewry’s Bluff and then Absent Sick the rest of the way.

Amazingly, after everything the brothers struggled through during the war, four of them lived long lives.

Lawson left this life in 1907 at the age of 68. Andrew (known as Andy) was the next to slip away when he died at age 82 in 1914.

Hillary was next. He passed away in 1915, 36 days short of his 81^st birthday.

And Clabourn died in 1933 at the age of 94. He was the last of the nine brothers to die.

The Barganiers were either wounded or too sick to fight more often than they were active for the battles listed in Confederate records. Sickness hampered them during the war, according to the Muster Roll records. That was a common occurrence during the Civil War.

Surviving the Civil War was difficult. Overcoming a brush with Civil War medicine and then living through the war was remarkable. But to do all of that and live into the new century, not to mention three of them reaching into their 80s or 90s, was amazing.

Just another Civil War family with a great story to tell.

Thanks for reading.