Historical events become more alive and real when you can establish a personal connection of some kind with them. The various battles and campaigns of the Civil War, for example, can seem remote and impersonal until you consider it in terms of your own relatives or those of people you know.

Activities of the Harlan County Battalion, the 47th Kentucky Infantry and the 4th Kentucky Mounted Infantry have been mentioned previously from the standpoint of the commanding officer and the units as a whole. It may seem a little different from the viewpoint of the ordinary soldier.

Ira D. Hall was born Oct. 17, 1840, in what was to become Letcher county in less than two years. Details of his ancestry were in last week's column. He is described as being five-feet, six inches tall, an average height for the time, with a dark complexion and black hair and eyes. He served first in the Harlan County Battalion, a state guard unit. It was probably at this time that he wrote the following letter to his parents:

"I seat myself this afternoon to write you a few lines to let you known that I am still in the land of the living...I would be glad to see you all, but I know not when that day will come...I understand that times is quiet in your section of country at present. I would to God that the contending politicians of both North & South would settle this issue and leave a distracted nation in peace and restore the union with its old form of a free republican government. I will say that we are here and expecting a battle shortly. If we are successful in taking the gap I do not believe that we will ever be in any other fight. There is reason to believe that the thing will be settled shortly. I will inform you that we have never received only thirteen dollars as yet. There is 6 months pay due us...so it being a late hour I will have to close for the present."

Ira's hopes for a quick end to the war did not come to pass. The Cumberland Gap changed hands frequently and it is not certain if the battle he referred to was successful or not.

Early in the fall of 1863, he enlisted in Company H of the 47th Kentucky. This company, led by Captain Benjamin F. Blankenship who had commanded the Harlan Battalion, was composed almost entirely of men from the Poor Fork area of Harlan and Letcher Counties. So Ira marched off to war with his friends and neighbors. They did not go far as this unit spent most of its existence in various area of eastern and central Kentucky trying to protect the countryside from Rebel raids and the outlaw bands that had sprung up. That spring he was transferred to the 4th Kentucky, Company D, captained by J. A. Roberts. This was a drastic change from his previous service which had consisted mostly of a lot of marching around in bad weather and frequent minor skirmishes with the enemy. Disease and bad weather had been their chief difficulties in the 47th.

The 4th Kentucky on the other hand had already seen considerable action and were reorganizing after having participated in the battles of Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge. The unit had suffered losses both in battle and to the diseases which were rampant in the close quarters of the camps and Ira was among many men transferred to the unit to make up the shortage in men.

Ira fought with the unit in their Georgia campaigns seeing action at Masons Church, Lovejoys and Shakerag. In August they participated in a battle at Newman, Georgia, where fortunately Ira was not among the many men captured by the Rebels. The remainder of the unit returned to Nashville for refitting and then became active in the campaigns in Tennessee. Throughout the fall of 1864, they were on the move chasing the rebels across the state until forced to retreat back to Nashville after the battle at Shoal's Creek.

The official military records state that he deserted his unit on Dec. 6 and was arrested by the Kentucky Provost Marshall on Dec. 16. He was restored to duty Feb. 23, 1865. In his pension record, Ira states that in the latter part of 1864 he was treated at the military hospital in Nashville. These records could not be located by the military which is not surprising as a major battle was fought at Nashville in mid December.

It appears that Ira, sick and weary, sought treatment at the hospital and then simply decided to go home. The army did not punish him further than some time in the stockade and a loss of pay for the period absent from his unit. He was with his unit at Waterloo in Alabama and while they searched Georgia for Jefferson Davis that summer before being mustered out at Macon in mid August.

On Dec. 6, 1867, two years after the war, Ira married Louisa Cornett. They had seven children: Malinda, Preston C., Phoebe, Joseph E., Henry C., and his twin, William, and Sarah. The family lived in Magoffin County for a few years and then returned to Letcher County. After living twenty years in Jeremiah and Smoot Creek area, they moved to Inman in Wise Co., Va., for a few years where Louisa died. Following her death, Ira moved to the Dione area of Poor Fork.

In 1906, he married John Sergent's widow, Sarah, daughter of Calvin and Catherine Lewis Howard. Ira and Sarah's daughter Mattie was born in 1912 and just short of six years later, on June 5, `918, Ira died at Dione.