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Note: s a sergeant & a blacksmith who was wounded & applied-for & received a pension from the CSA. He was taken as a POW & held as part of "Witherspoon's Battalion of Arkansas Calvary of Fort Smith Arkansas". He was released in April 1865 according to his son's Bible memo. His release was from Tupelo, Mississippi. He received a pistol, a mule, & his discharge papers. He told his grandson Dewey (John Nathaniel's son) that when he got to the Mississippi River that he had to pull his pistol in order to force his way across the river to head home to Caddo Gap, Arkansas. After The Civil War, he was said to have walked with a limp which became progressively worse as he aged.
JANE's father was prominent & prosperous in the area. He was friends & contemporaries with "Judge Silas Perron Vaught" (who was just 4 yrs. younger than JANE's father). JANE sought her father's counsel on her marriage to Nathaniel. She apparently wanted more for herself & her children than Nathaniel could provide. She filed for divorce, & it was apparently a big scandal in 1878. She was told by her fiancé (Judge Vaught) that she could bring her 3 Ellington children to his home when the two married. NATHANIEL was not pleased with the divorce & only allowed her to take the 2 older children with her to her new marriage. He kept the youngest, "Good Boy" (John Nathaniel), with him; "Good Boy" was 4. This measure was said to punish JANE for her actions!
also told stories about The Civil War to his grandsons. He told them about: the horrors of the war itself, his daily work as a blacksmith, his capture, his imprisonment, his release from MS, & his return journey to Caddo Gap. He also hunted & fished with his sons & grandsons. Although he walked with the aide of a cane, he was active in caring for himself; & he lived alone as a divorced man until his death in 1920.
He hated it when his youngest child, John Nathaniel, moved to Riverby, Fannin County, Texas in 1916 with his wife & his children. NATHANIEL now had only 1 grandson, Joe Van Steenwyck (by his daughter Celia), to look-after him & befriend him.
During The Influenza Epidemic of 1918, NATHANIEL went to Riverby, Texas to see his youngest child, John Nathaniel, who was dying. This was in the early part of March 1920. (JANE, Nathaniel's ex-wife, also traveled to see her son before his death but did not contract the flu as did NATHANIEL.) Although the flu epidemic was rampant throughout the world, NATHANIEL contracted the flu after his trip to see his dying son. "Our family" suffered 4 DEATHS from the flu that year: 1) "John Nathaniel Ellington", Nathaniel's youngest child, died @ Riverby, Fannin County, Texas on 3-17-1920. 2) "Nathaniel Ellington" himself died after March of 1920 @ Caddo Gap, Arkansas. 3&4) "Dora Gladden Ellington", Nathaniel's daughter-in-law (Bill's wife), died on 11-7-1920 @ Caddo Gap, Montgomery County, Arkansas. It was said by our family that Dora took-care-of her ill father-in-law Nathaniel while she was pregnant. She gave birth on 10-20-1920 with "the child" dying the same day; she died on 11-7-1920 from complications of the childbirth & the flu.
Note: During The Civil War, "Nathaniel Ellington" was in the Confederacy, The Caddo Rifles. He wa
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