"Written by Nadine Kroll for a book by Ellanore Alexander, contributed July 2000."

Bartley Merideth Gilcrease b: 1836, Grove Hill, AL, d: 1898, Gonzales Co., TX
      father: John Gilcrease b: 1788, SC
      mother: Priscilla Amelia (Parmelia) Gilcrease b: 1798, d: late 1800

Nancy E. McMullen married very young, age 15. According to family stories, she ran off to marry Bartley Gilcrease, but her father brought her home. She left again. Nancy and Bartley apparently lived most of their married life in Clarke Co., Alabama. Nancy had three small children when Bartley went off to the Civil War. Nancy's parents and younger siblings helped out during Bartley's absence.

Bartley Merideth Gilcrease was born in 1836 in Alabama. Bartley was living with his parents when they lived in Lauderdale Co., Mississippi in 1840 and in Sumter Co., Alabama in 1850. After Bartley married Nancy in Washington Co., Alabama they lived in Clarke Co. Alabama.

Actually, Bartley just went home - as did thousands of other Confederate soldiers during the final phase of the Civil War. The war was going badly for the Confederates and basic supplies of food, medicine, clothes and boots were scarce to non-existent. The soldiers were weary and returned home the best way they could. Bartley made part of his homeward journey by train. His granddaughter Rosa Lee Guthrie related to her daughter Venita a story from that homeward journey. "Bartley was yelled at by a lady on the train "Let me see that Rebel! Does he have horns?" Bartley said he yelled back "Do you see any?".

Bartley told his children "We were so hungry we killed a mule one time and cooked it but I cut out the tongue and ate it raw. " Basic foods for the Confederates were flour, corn, pork and dry beans and peas. One field pea that grew well in the south, was called clay pea. It was a small pea the color of clay that cooked quickly and made a thick soup. Many soldiers cooked for themselves when they could, sometimes using their pay to purchase something. They drew $11 a month at first, then later $18 per month. When on the march they ate salt pork and hardtack (a kind of biscuit).

Raw material for making uniforms was soon depleted, and clothing quickly wore out. Footwear was always a problem for the infantry. Bartley told of his feet bleeding while he marched.

Family tradition relates that Bartley was wounded during the Civil War, but no record of such a wound has been found. The wound could have been a minor infection and treated at a camp or field hospital. Some of the medicines the Confederate doctors and nurses used were: acetic acid (vinegar), whiskey, either, quinine sulfate, sugar, ammonia water, adhesive plaster and morphine sulfate. As a nurse Bartley would have been familiar with some or all of these medicines.

After returning from the War Bartley farmed in the Grove Hill and Jackson area of Clarke Co., AL. Nancy and Bartley had five additional children after he returned from the War. Nancy's granddaughter Rosa Lee Guthrie passed on the story that "Nancy had a kidney disease that was called dropsy. They lived in a house with a fireplace that slanted inward. Her legs would swell up so that to get relief she whipped her legs with switches to get the water out. The water would run toward the fire. Bartley would have to carry her around sometimes.

Bartley had a horn that sounded from afar and he would blow on it 3 times when he was coming home, to let Nancy know. The house was covered with wood shakes and one night a huge panther tore off a shingle and peered inside. Nancy threw a steaming cup of water at him. The panther went to another place and tore off another shingle. Nancy then heard Bartley's horn two times only. As he crossed the big ditch toward the house another panther had jumped on he back of his horse tearing up the horse's flanks. Bartley shot the panther that attacked his horse and the one at he house."

Nancy apparently died fairly young in the early 1880's, but her death date is unknown. She was probably in Clarke Co., AL. After Nancy died Bartley was a circuit Methodist preacher for a time, taking his daughter, Mary Lavicy, with him on some of his rounds. Bartley married again, but no record has been located on his second marriage.

All of the family eventually migrated to Texas except Barbara who had married Oliver M. Little in 1882 and was with child. It appears that Allen Q, his wife Luella, and daughter Carrie (born 1880) left Mobile, Alabama and traveled over land to Gonzales Co., Texas where daughter Lena V. was born in 1882. The family may have gone to Caldwell Co. Texas first to where Allen's maternal grandfather, Joseph Alexander, Sr. and other families had earlier migrated from Mississippi. Gonzales County is adjacent to Caldwell County and Wilson County is next to Gonzales.

Bartley and the rest of the family, except daughter Martha Jane and husband William Jackson Stanley, probably migrated next. They took all their possessions on a steamboat down the Tombigbee River into the Mobile River to Mobile. They then traveled with a wagon train to Gonzales County, Texas. Youngest son, Joseph (Joe) Sephus related to his family that he walked behind the wagon all the way to Texas. Bartley and Allen Q. paid taxes in Wilson County in 1891.

The Stanley's arrived in Wilson County between August 1891 and December 1893, The Stanley's later moved to Gonzales County where Bartley probably lived with them at the time of his death in 1898. His granddaughter Ona Nancy Stanley was old enough to remember that his old horse would come put his head in the window to be petted when Bartley was ill.