So my William entered the Civil War through Burnsville, Mississippi. He ended up in Camp Chase Ohio and when released, went to the area of Cocke County, Tennessee nestled in the midst of the Great Smokey Mountains. While randomly researching internet records one night, I found a marriage of W. E. Shults to a Francis Bugg in November 1865 in the North Carolina Marriage Bonds 1741-1868. The record notes under the comment section “Ger; of Mississippi”. Wow, could this be my William? Haywood County, North Carolina is just across the state line from Cocke County, Tennessee where William listed his address on his Oath of Allegiance when he was released from Camp Chase Confederate prison. A Marriage Bond was recorded on November 24, 1865 and reads:

State of North Carolina, Haywood county: Know all men by these presents that we, W. E. Shults of the State of Mississippi and Henry Harris of the county and State aforesaid are here and firmly bound unto the State of North Carolina in the full sum of One thousand Dollars current money of the State to the payment of which we be and truly to be made as for, we bind ourselves, our heirs, executors and administrators jointly, severally finally by these presents, signed with our hands, sealed with our seals and date this 24th day of Nov. 1865.

The condition of the above obligation is such that whereas the above bounder Shults has made application for above, of marriage to be celebrated between himself and Francis Bugg now in case it shall not hereafter appear that there is any lawful cause or absence said marriage (unreadable word) in that case the above obligation to be void otherwise to remain in full force and virtue.

Signed, sealed and delivered in presences of J. W. William. W. E. Shults, Henry Harris

In 1870. William’s cousins, George, John R. and David Rankin Shults are living in Cocke County. Is that why William chose to start a new life there?

W. C. Allen writes so eloquently in his book “Centennial of Haywood County and its County Seat Waynesville, N.C” about William’s adopted home:

By the fall of 1865, the pomp and glory of war had ceased to excite the youth of Haywood county, and the veterans, who had borne the burden and heat of the campaigns during the four years of strife, had gotten back to their homes after a long absence. Some of the soldier boys, who were with Lee and Johnson and who had been paroled, returned in April and May. Others who had been wounded or held in prison, did not get back to the old homesteads until late in the summer or fall.

The troops of Thomas and Love, who had fired the last shots east of the Mississippi and had forced a Yankee regiment to terms of surrender more than a month after the surrender of Lee, retired from the service of the confederacy, laid down their arms and took up the hoe. Other Haywood County boys from the battlefields of Virginia and Tennessee found their way back to their native hills and began again the pursuits of peace. War was over, but the battles of peace, no less stern and unrelenting, had to be fought; and the manhood, that had exhibited itself at the cannon’s mouth or in the charge of bayonets, was not called into other and better service.

Haywood county needed development. The four years of strife had arrested progress in every line of industry. there was no development in agriculture, no manufacturing, no mining, no lumbering, no commerce worthy the name, no banking, nothing of the hundred different enterprises now going on so successfully in the county. The red hand of war had blasted every enterprise, and stagnation was literally stalking abroad.

But the heroes of war were no less brave in times of peace. with the same heroism that they displayed on a hundred blood-stained fields, the boys of ’61 began rebuilding and reanimation of the county.

In 1870 William, age 38 and Francis, age 24 are listed with eleven year old Harriett Gwinn. William does not own any real estate of personal property and lists his occupation as “keeping mill.” He states he was born in Mississippi.

In 1880 he is listed as M. Elgin Shults with Charity Bugg, age 13,  a niece, James Bugg, 14, a nephew, James Bugg, age 76, listed as father-in-law, a son, James Smathers, age 3 and Fred Payne, also age 3, a nephew. Charity and James were the children of Francis’ brother, Benjamin and his wife Susan. Three year old Fred Payne, the great grandson of James Thomas Bugg,

In 1900, William is listed as William E. Shooltz. He lists his birth as March 1829. Francis is listed as age 53. Also listed is an adopted son, Horace W. Shooltz, born July 1884, Thomas W. Crawford, born May 1891 and May F. Crawford, born March 1893. Horace William was born July 23, 1884 and according to his granddaughter, Elnita Owens of Laurens, South Carolina and Horace’s death certificate, Horace William’s mother was Charity Bugg. William E. Shultz is listed as his father.

William died some time after his Pension Application in 1901. His widow, Frances Minerva Shultz died December 15, 1915 in Clinton, South Carolina.

Return to Shoults Genealogy Index.