J. C. Boyd

BOYD, JOHN CLAY (1846 ~ 1925). John Clay Boyd, Confederate Veteran, was born in Sumter County, Alabama on March 26, 1846, to John Montgomery Boyd III of South Carolina and Louisa Jane Moore of Alabama.

During the Civil War, John Clay Boyd was mustered into Company K, 40th Alabama Infantry in Baker's Brigade as a private. Boyd was captured as a prisoner of war at Big Shanty, Georgia on June 15, 1864. He joined more than 12,000 other prisoners at Rock Island Prison. The prison was located on the Mississippi River between Davenport, Iowa and Rock Island and Moline, Illinois.

Two months after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia the prison housed 1,112 inmates, including Boyd. He was not released until June 22, 1865. Upon his release, Boyd returned to his home in Alabama.

John Clay Boyd married Louisa Weldon Swain in Alabama. Together they had eight children: Neil Nelson Boyd, William Thomas Boyd, Bernice Boyd, Ladocia (Docilla) Boyd, John Waldon Boyd, James Austin Boyd, Cornelia Boyd, and Norman Boyd who was born in 1893.

In 1893, John Clay Boyd and his family moved to Texas and settled in Hunt County, Greenville, Texas. Boyd, his wife, and four of their children were still living there in 1900, where Boyd worked as a day laborer. In 1911, due to county line changes, they lived in Hopkins County, Sulphur Bluff, Texas. On September 1, 1913, Boyd applied for a Confederate pension and first drew it on December 1, 1913.

Boyd left Texas on September 1, 1922, to visit his sister in Mississippi. He returned to Sulphur Bluff, Texas on August 12, 1923, and remained there until his admittance into the Confederate Men's Home in Travis County, Austin, Texas, on January 8, 1924. By this time, Boyd was a widow.

John Clay Boyd died at the Confederate Men's Home of a cerebral hemorrhage on November 23, 1925, and was interred in the Texas State Cemetery the following day.

Sources: 1850 Sumter County, Alabama Federal Census; 1860 Alabama Federal Census; 1880 Alabama Federal Census; 1900 Hunt County Texas Federal Census; Death Certificate; Confederate Home Roster; Confederate Pension Application 24729; Compiled Service Military Record; www.rootsweb.com/~ilrockis/plac_hist/hist-cp.htm history of Rock Island Prison; and descendant of John Clay Boyd.