When Sallie Carter was a teenager, she used to sneak down the trellis of her family’s 19th-century Tennessee plantation house at night, to dance with her father’s slaves in their quarters. I don’t know if her boyfriend minded. It’s possible he wouldn’t have been able to say anything, anyway. John Montgomery hailed from a farming family, likely of a lower social class than the Carters.
There had been some confusion over the year of Montgomery’s birth, listed as 1832 in his front-page obituary in a 1931 Eugene Register-Guard. But descendants of the Montgomery clan have in their possession a family Bible that says he was born in 1840. Montgomery, it appears, fudged his age a bit, perhaps to collect old-age benefits from the government.
The family made sure Montgomery’s real date of death was reflected on the grave marker erected for him Eugene, Oregon’s Pioneer Cemetery:
PVT JOHN G MONTGOMERY
CO H
5 TENN CAV
CSA
DEC 18 1840
JAN 6 1931
That’s CSA as in “Confederate States of America.” The modern U.S. government recognizes even Johnny Reb as an American serviceman, and maintains a program to recognize unmarked veterans’ graves with simple slab markers. Montgomery’s 2000-minted stone stands in sharp contrast to Sallie’s, a by-comparison ornate, almost Victorian affair, just next door in the neighboring plot. Sallie passed away in 1923, and was buried in a plot that probably cost around $30 at the time of purchase. The family interred Montgomery next to his wife when he died eight years later, but had no money at the time for a stone.
These quiet stones in a sun-dappled grove belie the passion and adventure of their honorees. Shots were fired at Fort Sumter in April of 1861. Tennessee seceded from the United States in May, and despite his romance with Sallie, by October Montgomery had enlisted in the Confederate Army. Along with the 5th Tennessee Cavalry, Montgomery saw action at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863, a major victory for the Confederacy, but was eventually captured by Union forces.
Throughout his service and imprisonment, John Montgomery carried a 10 cent good luck piece, a coin a modern descendant, the family historian, still possesses. The dime’s powers seem to have waxed and waned, as Pvt. Montgomery escaped from a Union prison only to be recaptured. Montgomery eventually enjoyed his release only at War’s end, in 1865. He returned to Tennessee to marry his beloved Sallie, and the couple slowly emigrated west, settling by turns in Ohio, Georgia, Arkansas, and eventually Oregon.
Along the way they produced seven children, with colorful given names such as Gettysburg (a boy), the curiously-spelled Tallahasie (a girl), and youngest son Ruby (that’s right: son). In the northwest, Montgomery and his family would settle in Walterville, in Oregon’s Lane County, to operate the profitable Montgomery Brothers Logging in the McKenzie River Valley for many decades.
The pioneer couple remained plucky into their elder years. John insisted on growing Southern crops such as peanuts and tobacco in Oregon, just to prove he could. Sallie refused to let one of her grandsons visit while wearing his high school ROTC uniform – its color too reminiscent of Union blue.
John carried on curing his palate-pleasing hams and uttering a favorite expression – “God bless ol’ Jeff Davis!” – until he passed. “From all I knew,” reminisces a modern Oregon descendant, “he was a real Southern gentleman, in attitude and manner.”
It’s pleasantly warm in Pioneer Cemetery on Memorial Day 2007, and crowded. Around 100 community members are here to honor America’s fallen soldiers, some of them even sporting Victorian garb. The ceremony fittingly takes place at the newly-restored Grand Army of the Republic plot, the resting place of some 50 Union soldiers. At the base of the plot’s statue of an earnest Union soldier, his eyes scanning the horizon, the Sons of Union Veterans place memorial wreaths for the dead of each American war. Tiny American flags by each veteran’s marker flutter in the breeze.
Across the cemetery, out of the sun and away from the cameras, John Montgomery’s 7-year old headstone sits silently next to Sallie’s 84-year old marker. The pioneer couple has not been forgotten today. A small polished stone painted with a heart rests at each gravesite. New flowers drink from Tupperware dishes. A Montgomery heir has been here today, to honor the life of an American veteran.
Like the graves in the Grand Army of the Republic plot, Montgomery’s resting place also boasts a miniature American flag, courtesy of the Sons of Union Veterans. John Gibson Montgomery rests beneath the banner of a nation that welcomed him back. Here today, at this moment at least, the War has been laid to rest.
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