Military Monday: Emanuel Crabill

Today's topic was, once again, one of the ones suggested by Geneablogger. There are a whole raft of choices for daily blogging prompts, so I can choose some of the others later. But Military Monday was the one that caught my eye for today.

Emanuel Crabill (1823-1880) was a Civil War veteran. My grandfather, Charles Crabill, was very proud of him. Emanuel's picture was proudly displayed in Grandpa's den and he talked about him often.

Once again it turns out that I didn't have the whole story.

From http://www.vagenweb.org/shenandoah/civilc.html we can see that Emanuel Crabill had been a member of the 136th Virginia Militia, Co. A, prior to the war. He became part of the 33rd Virginia Infantry, Co. B, the "Independent Greys," or "Toms Brook Guard." There were several other Crabills in his company. Emanuel was the first captain in this company. It was mustered into service on July 8, 1861, according to http://www.stonewallbrigade.com/33E/eg1861/eg1861.html.

My aunts told me that Emanuel was frequently sick, so he never got to see much in the way of action. He resigned on August 6, 1861. From that time on, he fought the war in his own way at home. He would frequently hide in trees and shoot any stray Yankees who wandered past his hiding spot.