Chancey Graham was born in 1837.
Chancey (or Chauncey) was possibly living in Spring Lake, Ottawa County, Michigan, when he enlisted at the age of 24 in Company A on May 13, 1861 (he was possibly related to Robert Graham of Company H and/or William H. Graham of Company B, all of whom had resided in Ottawa County before the war).
Daniel Littlefield, also of Company A and a good friend, described Graham’s behavior during the action of July 18, 1861, at Blackburn’s Ford, near Bull Run. “I thought,” wrote Littlefield,
My friend Chancy Graham, who by the way has been to “Pikes Peak” & is the coolest genius you ever saw, found me, soon I hear the command to fire by company & I jumped behind a tree when the bullets whistled by us in every direction tearing the bark off from either side of the trees, we stood behind, as the bullets were ripping by us & knocking the leaves from the trees. Chancy asked me a question that made me laugh, laugh one of our good old hearty laughs. He asked me if I thought it was Providence or bull head luck that kept the bullets from hitting us. I told him it was the trees at present, but if we got off alive it must be by the help of “God.”
On July 26, 1861, another friend from Company A, William Drake, wrote to an acquaintance in Michigan describing how the battle of Bull Run “was regular bush fighting & against a masked battery” and that Graham “lost his hat in the engagement & he'll have wonderful stories to tell when he gets back to old Ottawa -- during the hottest of the fight when musket-balls & cannon balls were flying thick around them, -- his comrade, affected a serio-comic [expression] and asked him ‘[Chancey] are you happy?’ ‘Quite so, but I'm afraid I'll cut in a __ & no whiskey on hand’ said [Chancey] -- there's nothing in the words or the mere expression [‘the mere expression’ is crossed out] -- but those who were on hand say that his expression phisionomically was droll in the extreme -- I saw him after the fight -- met him in the woods -- nary cap on his head -- & his hair like a Dutch mop -- his eyes & nose too very prominent -- I declare I hardly knew him.”
Chancey was reported "absent without authority" in August of 1862, and a deserter as of September 21, 1862, at Upton’s Hill, Virginia.
While there is no further record, Chancey reportedly returned Michigan and at one point was living in Coopersville, Ottawa.
He was a member of the Old Third Michigan Infantry Association.
No pension seems to be available.
Chancey (or Chauncey) was possibly living in Spring Lake, Ottawa County, Michigan, when he enlisted at the age of 24 in Company A on May 13, 1861 (he was possibly related to Robert Graham of Company H and/or William H. Graham of Company B, all of whom had resided in Ottawa County before the war).
Daniel Littlefield, also of Company A and a good friend, described Graham’s behavior during the action of July 18, 1861, at Blackburn’s Ford, near Bull Run. “I thought,” wrote Littlefield,
My friend Chancy Graham, who by the way has been to “Pikes Peak” & is the coolest genius you ever saw, found me, soon I hear the command to fire by company & I jumped behind a tree when the bullets whistled by us in every direction tearing the bark off from either side of the trees, we stood behind, as the bullets were ripping by us & knocking the leaves from the trees. Chancy asked me a question that made me laugh, laugh one of our good old hearty laughs. He asked me if I thought it was Providence or bull head luck that kept the bullets from hitting us. I told him it was the trees at present, but if we got off alive it must be by the help of “God.”
On July 26, 1861, another friend from Company A, William Drake, wrote to an acquaintance in Michigan describing how the battle of Bull Run “was regular bush fighting & against a masked battery” and that Graham “lost his hat in the engagement & he'll have wonderful stories to tell when he gets back to old Ottawa -- during the hottest of the fight when musket-balls & cannon balls were flying thick around them, -- his comrade, affected a serio-comic [expression] and asked him ‘[Chancey] are you happy?’ ‘Quite so, but I'm afraid I'll cut in a __ & no whiskey on hand’ said [Chancey] -- there's nothing in the words or the mere expression [‘the mere expression’ is crossed out] -- but those who were on hand say that his expression phisionomically was droll in the extreme -- I saw him after the fight -- met him in the woods -- nary cap on his head -- & his hair like a Dutch mop -- his eyes & nose too very prominent -- I declare I hardly knew him.”
Chancey was reported "absent without authority" in August of 1862, and a deserter as of September 21, 1862, at Upton’s Hill, Virginia.
While there is no further record, Chancey reportedly returned Michigan and at one point was living in Coopersville, Ottawa.
He was a member of the Old Third Michigan Infantry Association.
No pension seems to be available.
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