Tandy Branham
Tandy Branham was born on 20 May 1831 in southwest Virginia. He married Elizabeth Robinson, a Russell County girl a year older than he was, and they had at least seven children. The eldest known, Martha Jane, was born in December 1853. Nancy, William, Edith, Wilburn, Ella and John followed. The births of Martha, Nancy, William and Edith went into the Virginia birth registers with their parents named as Tandy and Elizabeth Branham. In 1860 he was a farmer of thirty in Wise County.
He served the Confederacy in the Civil War. In 1890 his widow swore that he had been a member of a captain's company "which belonged to Gen. Floyd Brigade"; the captain's name is hard to read in her application. General John B. Floyd commanded the Virginia State Line, a force the state raised in 1862 to defend its own southwestern counties. Family accounts say he served first in Company C of the 5th Virginia State Line, then in Company A of French's Battalion of Virginia infantry, and that he acted as a quartermaster, the man who saw to a company's supplies.
In 1863 a company of Confederate soldiers camped for a time at the Pound, and he was made its quartermaster. On 21 February 1863 he bought a sorrel horse from James M. French for the army.
In September 1863 he was home on furlough. Family accounts say a horse of his had been stolen and he went out to get it back, and was shot from ambush. His widow's sworn answer, given in 1890, was shorter: he "was killed while at home on furlough by the Federal soldiers", in Wise County. Their son Wib remembered it differently in his old age: his father was killed from ambush by Union men not far from home. Neighbors carried him back dead, in a sheet tied to a fence rail. It was 25 September 1863, and he was 32. His daughter Martha was nine.
He was buried in the Whitt Family Cemetery at Phipps, in Wise County. His stone reads: "Tandy Branham, Born May 20, 1831, Died Sept. 25, 1863, Aged 32 yrs. 4 mo. 5 dys. To the memory of a brave man who died that his country might live."
Elizabeth lived another fifty-three years and never married again. In November 1890 she applied to the state for a widow's pension, and the Wise County court awarded her thirty dollars a year. In 1874 their daughter Martha married William J. Fleming in Wise County, and the clerk entered the bride's parents as Tandy and E. Branham. When Martha died in 1934, her death certificate named her parents Tandy Branham and Elizabeth Robinson.
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Cite: Heirology, "Tandy Branham (1831-1863)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/tandy-branham-1831-1863-c21489.