John Belton Lyles

Son of a successful merchant, in 1860 he was a 16 year old living with his parents and 3 sisters in Camden, Kershaw District, SC. He enlisted in Camden, SC on 16 March 1862 and mustered as a Private in the Macbeth Light Artillery.

He was with his battery in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September and

It was while gallantly fighting at this very hot place that young John Lyles, expressing the feeling of many other soldiers, declared that he wished it was night.

He was with the battery to at least the end of 1864, the latest record in his military file.

In 1880 he was a store clerk in Camden, SC, but by 1900 he was the assistant cashier of the National Bank in Abbeville, SC and, at least part-time, a bookkeeper in Columbia, SC. He'd retired in Columbia by 1910. He applied for admission to the Confederate Infirmary (later South Carolina Confederate Home) in Columbia, SC in October 1910 as being infirm and indigent, but died at home the next year.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3. The quote above from an account by a battery veteran writing as "Vidi" in the Weekly Union (SC) Times of 9 July 1886, thanks to Dan Masters. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860, 1880-1910. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Louisa Patterson (1847-1933) in 1875 and they had 5 children.

09/1844; Columbia, SC

05/20/1911; Columbia, SC; burial in Quaker Cemetery, Camden, SC