A Century Late and a Fortune Short - Updated!

There is an old expression about being "a day late and a dollar short." In essence, this means arriving after a deal is done and with insufficient resources.

Well, based on the little data available, Ol' Br'er is showing up about a century too late to even have a chance of finding any answers.

As has been told all too often, one thing Br'er likes to do is check back in on cemeteries and graves to either confirm or add GPS coordinates for them and to perhaps update the description of and/or directions to the site. 

Being one of 'those people' who utterly loathe waste and inefficiency, Br'er does a good bit of research before setting out. He first finds all the cemeteries in a given area and then examines each to determine if they are good candidates for a visit. Some of the things he considers are:

• Are there any photo requests that have not been flagged as having a problem?
• How many memorials are registered (Is this a candidate for a full audit of all memorials in the cemetery?)
• Does it appear that there are unphotographed markers?
• Do the GPS Coordinates (if recorded) look correct using Google Maps Satellite View? Or do they appear incorrect?
• If there are no coordinates given, are there good directions? 
  
• Is the cemetery visible in Google Maps Street View?
• Are there any relatives in the cemetery? 
• How accessible is the cemetery? (i.e., Can you drive to it? Is it a hike to access it? Do you need permission to be on the property?
• How old is the cemetery?

Taking everything into account, he makes a plan for the most efficient route to visit the sites in order of priority.

Two tiny cemeteries piqued his interest. One was a single grave (to be discussed later). The other?

Schroeder Cemetery

One marked grave flanked by four unknowns. All soldiers. The oddest part is the location. These are just a few feet from the rear wall of a church. Indeed, there is only just enough space to accommodate a grave between headstone and wall! Obviously, these graves pre-date the structure. At least this part of it.

A name, a unit, and CSA. Not much information. Who was John? When was he born? When did he die? Did he leave a family? The only other fact that could be gleaned from the headstone is that it was placed no sooner than the late 1920s. 

How can this be determined? Two things: First, it has the Southern Cross of Honor. That was not created until 1895. Second, the stone is obviously issued by the Veterans Administration. These were not provided for Confederate Veterans until the late 1920s.

Finding out more and updating his memorial would be a good thing. And probably a challenge.

Game on, Skippy!

You would think someone like Ol' Br'er would know better than to accept such fool dares. 

Hours upon hours later, almost no results. 

Four images related to the military records.

Well, that confirms the unit details. And that the headstone was ordered in 1929.

This places him on the unit roster and in New Orleans in 1861. If only his address were legible!

  

Not certain what can be gleaned from this page, but it was in the soldier's file.

More confirmation, this is the man! 

But that is the end of the factual data. From here, it becomes speculation.

Census records list 7 men named John Schroeder living in Louisiana in 1860, born between 1820 and 1837 inclusive. 6 have a birthplace of Germany (or a German city). Of these 6, 2 are married with children. These 2 married men are not as likely to be this John Schroeder, given the lack of evidence that he left a family. 1 (the only one born in 1837) gives his birthplace as New Orleans.

I believe this last man is this John Schroeder. In 1850 he was 23 years old and living in the household of P and Sophie Schroeder, who appear to be his parents. And as a young man of 24 years, he is the most likely to join the Confederate Army.

Sadly, there, the trail ends. It would have been nice to connect him back to his family.

Update!

I threw the challenge of tracking down additional details about John to the Brain Trust (i.e., other genealogy researchers on the net), and they came through.

I was able, with some excellent suggestions, to find additional records that shed more light on John. 

First among these was to look for a City Directory for New Orleans. In the days before Telephone Directories, City Directories were the resource to locate someone in a city or town. Name, address, occupation (and in the days of segregation, race), and other data were published for everyone in town. This suggestion led me to an 1861 City Directory for New Orleans. There were several Schroeders listed, at least two of these with the name John. Intriguingly, one of the John Schroeders is listed as a Tin Smith.

Oooh! The Unit Roll remarks sure look like it reads "Tin Smith!"

Second, additional eyes on looking the street name came up with a couple of suggestions. These allowed me to determine the street to be Casa Calvo. Unfortunately, none of the Schroeders lived on this street or anything like it.

Damn!

Then I stumbled across a notation in the City Directory that Casa Calvo (or at least a portion of it) had been renamed Royal St. And, there is a John Schroeder is living at 632 Royal St. Damned if the unit roll address number does not look to be 632.

With this data in hand, I returned to the census records. Infuriatingly, there are no addresses on the census. But it does have Ward listed.

Back to the research! I find a couple of New Orleans maps from 1860/1861, one using color coding to identify the dozen or so Wards. I cross-check all the references, and 632 Royal St is in Ward 5. 

So now it is back to the 1860 Census. Putting all these new pieces together, I find one - ONE - John Schroeder living in New Orleans in Ward 5, born in Germany in 1825. Ok, his occupation is listed as "Segar Dealer," but people can and do change jobs. Still, this seems to be the only census where I can find him enumerated.

More digging reveals an immigration record for Johann Schroeder, born in Bremen, Germany, in 1825, arriving in New Orleans in 1854. Many immigrants swapped Johann for John, so that fits. The years fit. Everything fits.

I do believe that this is our man. 

Johann Schroeder: Born 1825 in Bremen, Germany. Immigrates to the United States in 1854 (aboard the ship Jhoanna no less), arriving in New Orleans. Works at a minimum of two professions, "Segar Dealer" (Cigar) and "Tin Smith." before joining Company F, Orleans Fire Regiment, Louisiana Militia, Confederate States of America in 1861. By 1864 he finds himself in Winterville, Clarke County, Georgia (a few miles east of Athens). Sadly, he dies here and is buried alongside four soldiers whose names are lost to time.

We can only speculate on his reasons to leave his home and move to America. Was he speaking adventure? Fleeing the law? Did he hope to strike it rich? Had he gotten a girl pregnant and was skipping out on his responsibility (or an irate father)? Was he an orphan? Did he leave family behind? There is no way to know now. Whatever his plans, hopes, or dreams may have been, he took them with him to the grave when he left this mortal world sometime before his 40th birthday.