William
Leroy Ashcraft
Submitted
by Sharon Ashcraft ashcraft329@yahoo.com
Son
of Joel and Martha “Patsey” Ferguson
William was born September 4, 1828 in York County, South
Carolina, the fifth son of Joel and Patsey Ashcraft. On the 16th
of June 1851, William married his first cousin, Sarah Ann Ashcraft. She
was the youngest child of Joel Ashcraft’s brother Jesse, and his wife
Sarah McClellan.
Sarah Ann was born September the 10th, 1834 just
across the county line in Chester County where her parents lived. John
Ashcraft, father of Joel and Jesse, had two plantations located on
Fishing Creek – one in York District and one in Chester District.
Jesse and Sarah lived on the farm in the Chester District.
About 1853, Jesse and Sarah decided to leave their native South
Carolina. The couple’s sons, William Terry, John Robert, James Leon
and Thomas A., along with their families, were members of the
Arkansas-bound wagon train. William and Sarah Ashcraft made the move
along with Sarah’s family.
Jesse, Sarah and their sons settled to the east of the Saline
River along Big Creek in Cleveland County near Mount Elba Road. William
and Sarah built their home about two miles to the southeast on the west
side of Blakely Creek. William’s first land purchase was eighty acres
for which he received his patent in December of 1857. In 1860, he
patented another two hundred acres. His final land patent was recorded
in 1861 for another forty acres.
William was a cotton farmer and had prospered since coming to his
new home. By 1861, he and Sarah had three daughters, Cynthia, Martha and
Melissa. This year saw the beginning of the tragic Civil War.
Early in 1862, under the Confederate Conscription Act, a draft
was enacted requiring all men between the ages of eighteen and
thirty-five to enlist. William volunteered for service in Company D of the 26th Arkansas
Infantry, also known as the 3rd Trans-Mississippi Infantry
and Morgan’s Battalion. William, along with three of his brothers,
enlisted on May 12, 1862 at Centreville, Bradley (now Cleveland) County,
as Junior 2nd Lieutenant for a term of three years or the
duration of the war.
By the 12th of August, William, present on the muster
roll, was “in arrest” and reduced to private. His service records
make no reference as to the offense. However, he did receive his
promised $30.00 bounty for enlisting with the Confederacy. In December
that year, William fought at the Battle of Prairie Grove, and then spent
the next eight and a half months at Ft. Smith. The Confederates
abandoned the fort on the 31st of August in 1863. Following
the Battle at Devil’s Backbone a few days later, William and his unit
returned to south Arkansas.
In October of 1863, after the fall of Little Rock the previous
month, massive numbers of Arkansas Confederate troops returned home on
unofficial leave to do what they could for their families. It’s
probable that William’s wife, Sarah, had died prior to 1863 and his
daughters were in the care of his sister-in-law, Catherine, and his
sister, Rebecca Chambers. (Sarah is not shown with William on the 1870
or 1880 census records.)
William’s wife and daughters were not listed on the 1863
list of Indigent Families of Confederate Soldiers of Cleveland County as
were those of his brothers, Thomas Kelsey and Jonathan Ashcraft, and two
brothers–in-law Thomas A. and James Leon Ashcraft. Nor was his sister-in-law, Catherine, and her children
listed, her husband James Leonard having died at Camp Anderson near
Little Rock in April. If indeed, William had been widowed by the time
the Yankees gained control of Arkansas, his primary concern would have
been for the welfare of his motherless daughters – now ages two thru
ten - and their future.
Confederate General Kirby Smith issued a general order
pardoning all soldiers who returned to duty and William continued to
serve as a private until shortly after the March 30th Battle
at Mount Elba in 1864. That day, Dockery’s retreating Confederates
removed twenty planks from the bridge across Big Creek at his
father-in-law/uncle Jesse’s place, halting the Union pursuit and
perhaps preventing an actual confrontation with the Yankees on one of
the Ashcraft farms. On April 15th, William and his brother,
Thomas, took the Oath of Amnesty and Allegiance to the United States at
Pine Bluff and returned home to Cleveland County.
By now, there was no fighting in the Cleveland County area and
William immediately began restoring his devastated farm near present-day
Herbine. The work was hard; there were few horses and mules left in the
area, thanks to the renegade Confederate Brig. Gen. Joe Shelby and his
marauding Missourians. And, William had no sons. However, he had two
nephews, Columbus and Joel Ashcraft - ages fifteen and thirteen
respectively - living two houses away with their mother, Catherine, who
also needed help to rebuild. Eventually, their farms became operational
once more.
By May of 1865 the war was officially over. William, along with
the majority of enlisted Confederate soldiers, received his blanket
pardon from President Andrew Johnson. The following spring saw the
cotton fields planted, but 1866 and 1867 were not productive years for
the crop. However, William persisted and recovered financially from the
war to become a successful farmer and land speculator.
His daughters all married between 1870 and 1880. William never
remarried and died at his home near Herbine March 4, 1901. He is buried
in Prosperity Cemetery near Pansy.
William Leroy
Ashcraft
Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern
Arkansas, Copyright 1890
Published
by The Goodspeed Publishing Co.; Chicago, Nashville and St. Louis
“William
L. Ashcraft is an old and prominent resident of Cleveland County, Ark.,
and, September 4, 1828, was born in York District, S. C., a son of Joel
and Patsy (Ferguson) Ashcraft, who were born in York and Chester
District in 1798 and 1803, and died in South Carolina and Cleveland
County, Ark., in 1856* and 1868, respectively. They were married in
South Carolina, but after the father's death, or about 1866, the mother
came with her children to Cleveland Co, Ark. She, as well as her
husband, was a member of the Primitive Baptist Church, and he was a
conservative Democrat in his political views. He was a farmer, and came
of a family of farmers, of English descent, noted for their longevity.
Eleven of his thirteen children grew to maturity, and five are living:
Uriah, William T**., Rebecca (wife of Eldridge Haynes, a farmer and
merchant of the county), Thomas K. (of Cleveland County), and J. A. (a
farmer of Perry County, Ark). *Joel died 1854 or 1855. **Should read William L.
William
L. Ashcraft received a fair education, in the schools of York District,
S. C., and remained under the shelter of his father's roof until his
marriage, when he began to till the soil on his own responsibility, and
has been more than usually successful.
In 1853 he left his old home
to come to Arkansas, and the same year located on the farm on which he
is now living, which then consisted of eighty acres, and has since added
the balance of 640 acres, of which 125 are under cultivation. June 16,
1851, he was married to Miss Sarah Ashcraft, who was born in Chester
District, S. C., in 1833, and died, in Cleveland County, Ark., in 1881*,
having become the mother of three children-two now living: Melissa C.
(Reap) and Martha J. (Holbrook). Cynthia E. died at the age of
twenty-eight years, the wife of L. C. Cooper, of Cleveland County. On
June 16, 1862, Mr. Ashcraft enlisted in the Confederate Infantry,
TransMississippi Department, and served until the close of the war,
receiving his discharge in May, 1865. When at Fort Smith, Ark., he was
taken prisoner, in August, 1863, but was released after being kept in
captivity about one month. (Civil
War service record shows he was “in arrest” August of 1862. His unit
was in Ft. Smith in August of 1863, but the garrison was under
Confederate control until the 31st of that month when they
abandoned the fort.)
Mr.
Ashcraft has long been identified with the Democratic party, and is a
man who is deeply interested in the welfare of his county, and is a
liberal contributor to worthy enterprises.”
*
Sarah is not shown with William and their daughters on either the 1870
or 1880 census enumeration
