Click the end of the arrows or the arrows.
Born in Kentucky in 1811, James Harney moved to Morgan Co., Illinois in the 1830s1. There he married Martha Anderson and practiced the blacksmithing trade. In his early 50's, he appears to have enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War, because he died during the assault on Fort Hindman at Arkansas Post, Arkansas, on 11 January 1863. General McClernand's Army of the Mississippi took a detour during the Vicksburg campaign to capture the fort, much to General Grant's displeasure2. It is possible that William Harney accompanied the army as a civilian. Given his age and profession, it is unlikely he was a front-line soldier.
James' son Alfred, born on 7 November 1849, grew up, married (to Julia Annette Ashbaugh), raised four kids, worked as a tinner, and died in central Illinois in 1934. His youngest son, Othea (born 1889), resumed the family wanderlust after marrying Mary Woodford Hoppin in 1909, heading west on a round trip as far as Utah.
Notes
1. Unlike a famous contemporary, he was not raised in Indiana. (Aaron Copland, A Lincoln Portrait, 1942).
2. Patricia L. Faust, editor, Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War, 1986, pg. 23.