The Fay Family: Relatives and Friends of Edwin H. Fay
   
THE FAY FAMILY PAGE

GENEALOGIES
   
Relatives and Acquaintances of Edwin H. Fay
Mentioned in the Letters
   
return to Edwin's page and directory
   
From This Infernal War - The Confederate Letters of Sgt. Edwin H. Fay
ed. Bell Irvin Wiley - with the Assistance of Lucy E. Fay; Univ. of Texas; 1958; pp. 451f.
   
1. Edwin Fay--Father of Edwin H. Fay. Born Barnard, Vermont, September 22, 1794; graduated Harvard, 1817; later moved to Georgia, and in 1820 to Alabama; taught school, practiced law, and became a planter; during the war lived at plantation "Rocky Mount," near Prattville, Alabama.
   
2. Harriet Porter (White) Fay--Mother of Edwin H. Fay. Native of Verona, New York; educatd at Emma Willard School, Troy, New York; a deeply religious person.
   
3. Will Ed--William Edwin Fay, eldest child of Edwin H. Fay. Born 1857; died July, 1862.
   
4. Thera--Eleutheria ("Dody") Fay, second child of Edwin H. Fay. Born 1859; died 1860.
   
5. Thorny--Thornwell Fay, son of Edwin H. Fay. Born: Minden, Louisiana, March 13, 1861; died Houston, Texas, March 31, 1932.
   
6. Edwin Whitfield Fay ("New Year")--Son of Edwin H. Fay. Born Minden, Louisiana, January 1, 1863; died Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, February, 1920.
   
7. William Henry Fay--Brother of Edwin H. Fay. Member of First Alabama Infantry Regiment; captured at Island No. 10, April 7, 1862; exchanged after five months' imprisonment at Camp Butler, Springfield, Illinois; he and other members of his regiment helped complete Confederate defenses at Port Hudson early in 1863 and then stayed on to man the heavy artillery there; captured when Fort Hudson surrendered on July 9, 1863; paroled and exchanged; killed by Federal sharpshooter near Atlanta, August 3, 1864.
   
8. Sarah (Sally) Stoddard--Sister of Edwin H. Fay. Married Sam Stoddard, who was in the Confederate army early in the war, but was discharged for ill health; lived in Prattville area during the war; children were Will, Almon, and Harriet.
   
9. Dunham (Dunnie) Fay--Youngest brother of Edwin H. Fay. Sixteen years old when war broke out; put to work in govermment saddle and harness shop in Selma in 1863 to avoid conscription.
   
10. Will Fay--Cousin and intimate associate in pre-war years of Edwin H. Fay (Fay's mother in one of her war-time letters referred to Will Fay as "our adopted child"); his wife was Eliza; during the war he held an administrative position in a factory at Prattville.
   
11. "Grandma"--Edwin H. Fay's maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Porter. Born in Connecticut January 1, 1786; moved to Selma, Alabama, in the antebellum period and was living there during the Civil War.
   
12. Spencer--Almon Spencer, Edwin H. Fay's best friend. Classmate of Fay at Harvard and taught with him at Minden Male Academy; Spencer and his wife, Jenny, and their child moved from Minden to the Prattville area when the war broke out and he became a member of Semple's Battery, Army of Tennessee; in Bragg's Kentucky campaign and the battle of Murfreesboro; hospitalized for illness in Chattanooga, August, 1863.
   
13. William Shields--Father-in-law of Edwin H. Fay. Owned and operated cotton mill and corn mill factory in Minden, Louisiana, in which Edwin H. Fay was a partner.
   
14. Sarah (Whitfield) Shields--Edwin H. Fay's mother-in-law. Close relation of Governor James Whitfield of Mississippi.
   
15. "Bud"--John Shields, brother of Sarah Shields Fay. He was sixteen in 1864; Fay tried unsuccessfully to get the Engineer Bureau of the Trans-Mississippi Department to employ John Shields as his helper; Bud did accompany Fay on one of his trips, but in what status is unknwon; after the war John Shields became a prominent lawyer in Greenville, Mississippi.
   
16. Lou--Lucy Shields, younger sister of Sarah Shields Fay. Was about seventeen and a student in a girls' school at Columbia, Tennessee when the war began; lived with her parents in Minden during the war; married Joseph Holmes, a Confederate soldier from Mississipppi.
   
17. Dr. Bright--J. E. Bright, D.D. President of the Minden Female College, 1862-1871.
   
18. Captain and Mrs. Wimberly--F. D. Wimberly and wife, of Minden. Neighbors and friends of the Shields and Fays; Wimberly was the first captain of the Minden Rangers, bu returned home in June, 1862, after the company was reorganized.
   
19. Dr. Patillo--W. C. Patillo, a Minden Physician. First lieutenant of the Mnnden Rangers until the company's reorganization; retuned home in June, 1862.
   
20. Rich--Slave and body servant of Edwin H. Fay. Apparently ran away to the Yankees in 1863 or 1864.
   
21. Cynthia, Henry, Lizzie, Laura, Gus--Household servants owned or hired by the Shields or the Fays in Minden during the war.