It was only two years ago that I discovered my Scott County Brickey family and the annual Brickey Family Reunion. I live in Wisconsin and my branch of the Scott County Brickey family moved into Kentucky after the Civil War and then about 1904 on into Wisconsin, to find work in the booming lumber industry.

We had long ago lost touch with both our Kentucky and Virginia relatives.  As generations of descendents multiply and live out their lives, they often give little thought to those who have passed before them. This is true whether they live close to the place of origin or thousands of miles away.

In working on my family genealogy, I remembered hearing over and over again that Grandma Betty (nee Brickey) Lyon (my 2^nd Great Grandmother) had been born in Scott County, Virginia.  Early in 2003, I decided to call “someone” in Scott County and ask about the Brickey family.  Through a series of calls I finally got connected with Michael Brickey of Dungannon.

Michael Brickey is a walking data bank of Brickey family and Southwest Virginia history.  He is not only blessed with an interest in family history, but also a memory that retains names, dates, connections and trivia that most of us need a computer for.  Through Michael I learned about the family reunion and I knew right then and there that I HAD to get myself to Fort Blackmore, VA on the last Sunday in June.

To make a wonderfully long story shorter, it was in 2003 that I visited the William Brickey Family Cemetery at Fort Blackmore, VA.  It was then that I discovered that only one of William & Elizabeth Brickey’s three Civil War soldier sons, who had died during the war, had a tombstone in the family cemetery.  Because one of those that was missing was my 3^rd Great Grandfather, Daniel Morgan Brickey, I was left with a rather empty and distressed feeling.

Daniel Morgan Brickey had been a member of the Scott County Militia, the 21^st VA Infantry Battalion (Pound Gap Battalion) and the 64^th Virginia Mounted Infantry.  He had been captured on September 9, 1863, by Union forces while guarding the Cumberland Gap and was taken to the infamous Camp Douglas Prison, near Chicago, IL.

It was here that Daniel Morgan Brickey spent the last 18 months of his life.  This picture is not pretty, for Camp Douglas ranks right up there with Andersonville for its inhuman treatment of prisoners.  About six weeks before the war’s end, Daniel Brickey died of smallpox.  Smallpox was just one of the many terrible communicable diseases that took the lives of thousands of soldiers, both North and South, in prison and in camp.

Daniel Morgan Brickey’s body was never returned to his family, he was buried along with thousands of others in a quickly dug grave in City Cemetery.  Some years later these bodies were re-interred in a mass grave at the Confederate Mound in Oak Wood Cemetery in Chicago.  Of the over 6,000 bodies buried there, only 4,200 names are on the plaque, Daniel M. Brickey’s name is not listed.

It became my quest to get Daniel and his brother, Elijah C. Brickey, their own Civil War tombstone for the family cemetery.  Then their name and history would rest with their other fallen brother, Samuel, and  other members of their family in the sacred soil of their Virginia “home”.

With the help of my cousins and a newly made friendship with Janice Busic of Honaker, VA, I was able to obtain a Civil War tombstone for these two fallen Confederate  brothers.  The tombstones were delivered, and Michael Brickey and Frank Compton carefully took them to the cemetery and erected them next to their brother and parents.  This was truly a labor of love on a very hot and humid day.

The graves were decorated, the grass mowed, and a Confederate flag placed nearby  as we readied the cemetery for a Civil War Memorial Day service on June 26^th 2005. With the generous assistance of Janice Busic and Deborah Lockhart, members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Anna Stonewall Jackson Chapter 180; Terry Hunt, Cathy Hunt, Jane Hunt, TJ Hunt, Shane Hunt, Brandy Hunt, Fairley and Deborah Lockhart, Dylan House, and Jim Boardwine, members of the Blue & Gray Historical Group; Sons of the Confederacy --Fairley Lockhart---member of the Brown Harmon Night Hawks, Tazewell County, Va.; Jim Boardwine---member of the Saltville Homeguard; Allen Thomas--member of the Smith County Dragoons; and the Scott County Clinch Mountain Rangers; a very meaningful remembrance and dedication service was held at the William Brickey Family Cemetery for their three sons. 

           Here, Samuel, Elijah and Daniel’s tombstones now rest and tell more of their history and their story.  For they, and all fallen soldiers, deserve to have a tombstone as a visible testament of their lives, service & sacrifice, so their families and the public never forget. May they now REST IN PEACE and be remembered more fully by their descendents and all visitors at the William Brickey Family Cemetery, Fort Blackmore, VA.

Jeanne Fugina is a life long resident of Wisconsin.  Her Civil War ancestors, both Union and Confederate came from Virginia and Kentucky.  She is an amateur genealogist and greatly interested in the history of the Civil War and it’s impact on the area of Southwestern Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, Northwest North Carolina and Eastern Kentucky.  Within one of her Kentucky families, she learned that her Union, 3rd Great Grandfather’s Confederate brother was involved in the entrapment and killing of their Union brother-in-law.  He quickly took his family from the hills of Eastern Kentucky and moved to Missouri where there were other relatives and old neighbors that had Confederate leanings.