John William Lokey

In 1860 he was a 15 (13?) year old living with his parents, 9 siblings, and 12 slaves on their farm at Columbus in Muscogee County, GA. He enlisted there as a Private in Company B, 20th Georgia Infantry on 23 May 1861.

He was with his company on the Campaign. Of his experience at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862 he later wrote:

I had 40 rounds of cartridges. After shooting them all away I started back to get some more. At the battery I met a man coming in who gave me twenty rounds. On the way back I picked up two Yankee haversacks, with three days rations in each, the rations consisted of bacon, crackers and ground coffee with sugar in it. This was certainly a treat, as I had nothing to eat for two days ...

As dark came on the firing ceased. I had fired sixty rounds with my old Enfield rifle in this fight and my right shoulder was kicked blue. I came out of the fight without a scratch. The closest call I had was when a ball passed through the left sleeve of my coat.

He was wounded at Gettysburg, PA on 2 July 1863:

I was taking deliberate aim at a Yankee when a minie ball passed through my right thigh. I felt as if lightning had struck me. My gun fell, and I hobbled down the hill. Reaching the timber in the rear, I saw a Yankee sergeant running out in the same direction, being inside our lines. I called to him for help. Coming up, he said, 'Put your arm around my neck and throw all your weight on me; don't be afraid of me. Hurry up; this is a dangerous place.' The balls were striking the trees like hail all around us, and as we went back he said: 'If you and I had this matter to settle, we would soon settle it, wouldn't we?' I replied that he was a prisoner and I a wounded man, so I felt we could come to terms pretty quick.

In 1870 he was a farmer at Columbus, GA, but by 1880 was farming in Collin County, TX. He was a grocer back in Columbus, GA in 1900 but again went west and was a Justice of the Peace at Byars in McClain County, OK in 1910 and a judge in the town court there by 1920 and to at least 1930, then 84 years old.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3. The Sharpsburg quote above from his My Experiences in the War Between the States (pub. 1959), and that from Gettysburg is from his account Wounded at Gettysburg in The Confederate Veteran, Volume 22 (1914), thanks to Tom Elmore. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860-1930. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

12/21/1845; Columbus, GA

02/17/1835; Byars, OK; burial in Byars Cemetery, Byars, OK