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The Gosses and the Goodrums

 The Goodrums did not contend with one other as the Pannills did. They were close. The family, fatherless, had grown up in poverty. Grandmother – born Lutie Hunt Donaldson – first married a man named Goss. He was the father of Mother’s siblings – Ethel, Nellie, Leo, and Leah. But around 1910, Father Goss abandoned wife and family to move to California. Grandmother begged him not to leave her with four small children, but he went. Years later, Leo discovered that his father had produced another family of Gosses on the West Coast. Grandmother moved to Cleveland, Texas, one county north of Houston. She was married a second time to…

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William Pannill VIII

 Papa – Judge William Pannill, my grandfather for whom I am named — was our patriarch. He was self-educated and self-made. He was born in Chatfield, Texas, in 1876. His own father, Dr. William Pannill, had been born in Virginia in 1850 and emigrated to Texas as a teenager during the Civil War. But Dr. Pannill was apparently not able to educate his first-born son at a university, so Papa graduated from high school and worked in the post office. He read law in Corsicana at night. That was the accepted method of becoming a lawyer in the 19th century. He met and married Mattie Cherry after seeing her in…

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Crab joins Jackson’s foot cavalry for Fredericksburg

   On December 13, 1862, the Union’s Army of the Potomac attacked Lee’s army at the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia. This battle proved one of the great disasters of the war for the Union.   The battle took place for Crab and Judge in a new brigade, itself part of a new Army corps led by Stonewall Jackson.   After the retreat from Sharpsburg, Lee used the lull in fighting to reorganize. The Confederate government, at Lee’s request, formally invested Generals Jackson and Longstreet as lieutenant generals. They became Lee’s lieutenants.   James Longstreet commanded the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia. Thomas Jonathan Jackson commanded the Second…

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Thomas Jefferson declines an invitation

 John Boles, professor of Southern history at Rice University, spoke this week to a civic gathering about how to understand Thomas Jefferson. One of the most brilliant of American thinkers, Jefferson left no autobiography. But he did leave thousands of letters. Boles said Jefferson attended to correspondence every day and kept his own copies of the letters he wrote. His letters illuminate the man. John Boles received his doctorate of philosophy in history from the University of Virginia and has been a prolific scholar. He is always a thrilling speaker. The Teaching Company or some internet course should snag him to talk about Jefferson. Jefferson’s letters are wonderful, Boles said.…

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Did Zachary Taylor meet our cousin at the White House?

 My aunt Hoolie (Adeline Pannill Aycock, 1908-2000, whose oldest sister gave her the nickname Hooliwag) told the story of a young cousin who had gone to a ball at the White House during the presidency of Zachary Taylor. The young woman had worn a white dress and had had her ears pierced. When she came down the steps, President Taylor greeted her by grabbing both her ears. She bled on her white dress. Her evening was ruined. I always thought, This story is a hundred years old. How could Hoolie know? But President Taylor did have some connection with the Pannill family in the 19th century. Zachary Taylor was the…

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Some famous kin claim Pannill ancestors

 Our aunts told us children with pride that we were all cousins of Major General J. E. B. Stuart, the great cavalry chief of the Army of Northern Virginia. His mother was Elizabeth Letcher Pannill, the daughter of David Pannill and Bethenia Letcher. Her grandfather was William Pannill III, who lived in Orange County, Virginia. General Stuart, at the behest of his mother, took the pledge as a boy and abstained from alcohol. After he suffered his mortal wound at Yellow Tavern in 1864, his attendants offered him alcohol to ease his pain. He refused, saying he was not going to break his promise on his deathbed. Go to the…

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Are Pannills really Pannells?

 How did Pannell turn into Pannill? There are many Pannells in the United States, but only a hundred or so Pannills. Family stories explain the spelling of Pannill – stories being the purpose of this blog – but only recently I found confirmation in DNA testing. One of my father’s five sisters (I can’t remember which) told me our ancestors adopted the surname Pannill in the 17th century. According to her story, three brothers named Pannell had fought in the Royalist army during the English Civil War (1642-51). The war broke out between Parliament and King Charles I in 1642. The war ended with the king’s execution by beheading at…

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Where does the name ‘Pannill’ emerge from?

 Those of us blessed with this surname have spent years correcting its spelling and pronunciation. Our name doesn’t compute for most people. That may be because it’s not Anglo-Saxon. The name seems to be Norman French. William the Conqueror landed in England in October 1066 – 946 years ago. Since the chances of our surviving to the thousand-year anniversary of this invasion in 2066 appear remote, let’s commemorate now. The Conqueror spoke French, but he was descended from Vikings. The French called him a Norman, short for Northman, meaning Scandinavian. One of William’s knights at the Battle of Hastings was a William Paganell. A history of the Normans mentions a…

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Company D loses half its men at Sharpsburg

 The bulk of of the Army of Northern Virginia reformed at the hamlet of Sharpsburg, Maryland. The Union army outnumbered them two to one, and the Confederate position backed up against the Potomac River. Only a single bridge allowed the army to retreat to Virginia.  Crab wrote: “[W]e retreated to Sharpsburg, Maryland, and were drawn up in line of battle fronting McClellan for several days before the battle opened. I well remember seeing Gen’l Stonewall Jackson pass by us with his command on his way from Harpers’ Ferry (where he had captured 10,000 of the enemy), to aid us in the coming battle. I will never forget how dusty he…

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Lee risks disaster in Maryland

   Afer Pope rushed into the safety of Washington, D.C., Lee decided to invade Maryland with the Army of Northern Virginia. As General Alexander wrote in his memoirs, “The enemy having taken refuge within lines impregnable to assault, Lee had no alternative but to take the offensive elsewhere. He could not afford to sit down before Washington and await the enemy’s pleasure.” E. Alexander, Military Memoirs of a Confederate, p. 220. On September 4, 1862, the Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac into the United States. Despite the victories of July and August, the Confederates lacked food and shoes. Alexander writes: “About one-half of the small-arms were still the…

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