Scott, John Wesley (1843-1920)

SCOTT, DEMARS, MORGAN, HENDERSON

Posted By: Chris McGovern (email)
Date: 8/9/2010 at 01:51:43

Written by John W. Scott
Atlantic, Iowa August 1904

At the request of friends, a brief mention of the family history of the undersigned is given:

My knowledge about the family is much limited.

Father’s family were North Carolinians. Great Grandfather’s name was Michael Scott; my Grandmother Scott’s maiden name was Lucy Morgan. A Kentucky lady, her family were Kentucky people.

My mother’s maiden name was Valeria Henderson; her family were old Virginians. These people emigrated westward over the mountains and through the forests and settled in Ohio just across the Ohio River from Kentucky.

My mother and father were married there and a number of children were born to them in Clermont County, Ohio; myself born in the year of 1843.

My grandmother, Lucy Morgan Scott and my mother, the great and good souled noble women, they were my worship in my childhood, and though they are long ago gone, their memory remains with me ever cherished and bright and sacred.

In the year 1856 our family removed to Iowa and we settled back one hundred miles west from the Mississippi River, traveling in heavy covered wagons.

When the War of Rebellion broke out in the South in 1861, it was my good fortune to go into the Union Army, and on the 20th of April 1861, enlisted as a private in a company of volunteers then being raised at Bloomfield, Iowa.

It was intended our company would be sent out in the first Iowa Infantry Regiment, but that Regiment was quickly filled from the river counties. Soon after in August of 1861 they suffered heavy loss in the Battle of Wilson’s Creek. Our company was early in May 1861 assigned and made part of the 2nd Iowa Infantry-the first regiment in Iowa, enlisted for three years; and in the fate of the war, the baptism in blood was reserved for us in the desperate and successful storming by our regiment of the rebel fortifications at Fort Donelson on the 15th of February, 1862.

It is not vain to say, that, that work made Grant. We served from the time of enlistment, in active service, four years and three months in the Union Army. At the close of the war in July 1865, was mustered out and returned home to Davis County, and there read law and was admitted to the practice of law. My wife and myself were married in 1867, and in the following year we removed to Audubon County, traveling in wagons. After residing there for a number of years, in the year of 1874 removed to Cass County, and with the exception of a short period away in Dakota, we have ever since resided in Atlantic, Cass County (Iowa).

Respectfully,

John W. Scott, August 1904

John W. Scott
(b. 1843 d. December 1920)
Captain, 2nd Iowa Infantry,

Union Army
(Father of Bonnie Scott DeMars)