If you squint hard enough at the story of William McLeod and his brother-in-law John Prescott, you can almost see the Tarleton twins from Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. Proud Georgia boys cut down in the prime of life in defense of their homeland. Or something like that. At least, that’s how the tales roll off people’s pens and tongues. And if you look at Lt. Col. McLeod next to the movie twins, well . . .

And some of it fits, sort of: William was 19 when he joined the 38th Georgia Infantry and headed to war. He would be shot down at Gettysburg, his name listed in the paper and on the town postings, just as the Tarleton twins’ names were in the movie. He had been accompanied to war by his apparently faithful body servant, Moses, who would later be instrumental in bringing his body home. He would then be laid to rest in his family’s new cemetery on its property to be accompanied by his brother-in-law, John, also a veteran of the 38th Georgia Infantry.

Of course, there was the matter of his unusually long wake in the parlor of his home (7 years . . . more on that later). There’s also the fact that his brother-in-law didn’t join the army with him and in fact didn’t join until after the passage of the Confederate Conscription Act of 1862. And there’s also the matter of Moses, the allegedly faithful body servant . . . who actually had many more reasons to be “faithful” than loyalty to his slave-holding white family.

The story of William McLeod, his brother-in-law, his family, and the enslaved they held has more twists and turns than we might expect from the romantic way it’s been told.

Early Life and Background

William Land McLeod was born May 6, 1842, near Swainsboro in Emanuel County, Georgia, the eldest son of Captain (Neil) William N. “Neill” McLeod (1812–1890) and Mary Griffis McLeod (b. 1818).

Like the extended family of Guilford Ricks, the McLeods were a prominent farming family; the 1850 Emanuel County census shows “Neill 38” and Mary 32 with children Sarah (age 11), William (8), Nancy (6) and George (3) living on their home plantation. Look closely at the real estate value column: $4000. In today’s money, that’s about $165,000—enough for about 30 acres today. The 1850 Slave Schedule shows that Neil (as we was known in all his public records and among friends) held one enslaved person, who would have been worth around $400-$600 or in today’s money about $16,000 to $24,000. But the family as a whole was well-to-do. Neil’s brother Duncan had 8 slaves.

A lot can happen in 10 years. In 1860, William was boarding with a nearby family, though we’re not sure why. His sister Sarah had married widower John Prescott. His family’s prosperity had grown enormously.

His real estate value had grown to $4300 . . . reasonable growth but not outlandish. But his total personal estate? $26,000 . . . or more than $1 million in today’s money. And that estate size was mostly found in human capital: 25 enslaved people, including 15 who were 15 years old and younger. Likewise, Neil’s brother Duncan had increased his slave holdings to 24 people.

Young William grew up in this rural setting and received a classical education – reportedly attending Oglethorpe College in Georgia before the war. He was described as tall and scholarly; his parents were staunch Southern Unionists until the outbreak of Civil War.

Civil War Service in the 38th Georgia Infantry

Southern forces attacked Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. The attack touched off recruiting and enlistment drives on both sides of the conflict, as the opening scene of Gone With the Wind shows. Indeed, William swept up in the furor.

In June 1861, William L. McLeod enlisted as a lieutenant in Company C of the newly formed 38th Georgia Infantry. His brother-in-law, John Prescott, did not. In fact, John and William were not close in life circumstances. While William’s sister (John’s wife) Sarah was born in 1839 and was just three years older than William, John was born in 1835 and was seven years older than young William. He and Sarah married in 1858 (their first son, John, was allegedly born in 1857, so, yeah), and by June 1861, they had toddler John and Sarah was pregnant with baby Mary who would be born in November. It wasn’t a great time for a farmer and young father to head to war.

Meanwhile, William quickly rose in rank: by spring 1862 he was captain of his company. His father apparently could not abide staying home any longer. Before conscription was implemented in April 1862, he joined in March the 48th Georgia Infantry as a captain in company H. At age 48, Neil would last only until October before having to resign his commission, but what a six months! Neil saw almost continuous action at Seven Pines (May 31-June 1), the Seven Days Battles (July 25-August 1), Mechanicsville (June 26), Gaines’s Mill (June 27), Malvern Hill (July 1), Second Manassas (August 28-30), Harper’s Ferry (September 12-15), and Sharpsburg (Antietam, September 17). The 48th Georgia he left behind was hardly what it had been when he started . . . it had endured grueling fighting and losses from the lowest ranks to the highest.

In May 1862, John Prescott joined William in Company C, but as a private and under the command of his younger brother-in-law. The timing is probably not a coincidence—the first Confederate Conscription Act was passed in April 1862, and John’s land holdings and profession would not have been enough to excuse him. (Neil’s holdings and position would have exempted him, but he went before conscription anyway.)

The 38th Georgia was brigaded under General John B. Gordon in Stonewall Jackson’s division. At the Battle of Gaines’s Mill (June 27, 1862), Col. Lewis Parr and Maj. James Mathews were wounded, and the 38th lost over half its men. Captains William Battey and William McLeod rallied the survivors to capture a Federal battery, driving the enemy back. (In a later letter Captain Battey praised “Capt. McLeod’s assistance” in that fight.)

After the Confederate defeat at Sharpsburg (Antietam), Capt. McLeod resumed command of the 38th, while his father resigned from the 48th on October 29. At Fredericksburg (Dec. 13, 1862), now acting as regimental commander, he led the 38th again as it defended Marye’s Heights. The regiment suffered many wounded, and McLeod himself was “stunned by a shell” during the fighting.

Despite the desperation of the fighting, neither army was exempt from intrigue, jockeying for position, leaks to the press, and numerous political intrigues. As the son of a wealthy planter and a respected officer with battlefield credentials, William felt he was not to be trifled with and possibly felt entitled to more.

In January 1863, Captain McLeod formally requested promotion to major and was passed over. He then wrote what some accounts have described as a a “stern” letter to the division commander. That commander, though, happened to be General Robert E. Lee’s “bad old man,” General Jubal Early – acting division commander in Georgia’s absence – who brusquely refused and even arrested McLeod on minor charges. As so often happened with these silly intrigues, by February, McLeod was cleared and officially promoted to major; by spring he had been elevated to lieutenant colonel of the 38th.

Death at Gettysburg (July 1, 1863)

As Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia marched into Pennsylvania in June 1863, Lt. Col. McLeod led the 38th Georgia proudly. On July 1, during Gordon’s attack north of Gettysburg, McLeod anchored the 38th’s left flank near Rock Creek. Mid-afternoon he led the final charge up the creek’s banks; while crossing a fence he was struck in the right temple by a minié ball.

Throughout the war, McLeod was accompanied by his body servant, a young man named Moses. Body servants were common among officers who came from slave-holding families, and some were as young as 16 years old. Typically, they performed duties like cooking, laundering, caring for gear, and tending horses. According to a couple of researchers, upon learning of William’s wounding Moses made his way to William and stayed with him as he died. He then wrapped William in blankets and personally buried him under a peach tree on the farm of Jacob Kime (which overlaps with where Gettysburg High School is today).

“Flowers on the Casket”: The Long Vigil

Back home in Emanuel County, Neil and Mary McLeod had no news of their son for weeks. Famously, on the afternoon of July 1 Mary confided to her husband on their porch that she feared “William is not coming home,” just as a white dove flew into their yard – a sign, she believed, of bad news.

Word eventually came that Lt. Col. McLeod had been killed.

When the war ended, the McLeod family did not wait the years that most Southern families did before repatriating their loved ones’ remains. They apparently had the means to pay for the travel to and from the site, as well as the transport costs of moving a body. Hence, Neil paid Moses to accompany him to Gettysburg where Moses led Neil to the grave he had personally dug. Moses gathered the remains and put them in a casket carved from an oak tree from Emanuel County.

On arriving home, Neill McLeod laid out a family cemetery near the house (no McLeod in the immediate family had ever died there before). The casket was placed in the family parlor and the news spread: friends and neighbors came to pay respects. Mary McLeod famously kept watch by her son’s bier all night.

And then, the story turns strange, even for the period where mourning practices were more elaborate. Mary refused to bury William until another family member could lie beside him. So she maintained a seven-year vigil: “Every day, for nearly seven years, Mary placed fresh flowers or green plants on top of the casket.” Each night she sat by the covered casket in the parlor, tending her son’s memory.

This was highly unusual even by the standards of the day. Embalming was only beginning to be a common practice during the Civil War and was generally only affordable for wealthier families. The McLeods had the wealth but not the access to William’s body. Without embalming, a body would typically be handled by the undertaker who measured it for a coffin. The coffin was then delivered, and one day was held for visitation purposes and to ensure that the person was actually dead. The coffin was then sealed and brought to a family’s formal parlor where a three-day wake took place. At this time, the coffin was surrounded by lilies or another strong-scented flower, in part to mask any smell of decomposition. After the three days, burial took place.

Such was not the case at the McLeod home where Mary maintained the wake with flowers, plants, and visitation for more than six years.

Finally, in August 1871 that next death occurred. William’s brother-in-law and former 38th Georgia comrade succumbed to illness, leaving his wife Sarah a widow with seven children. Prescott had been part of the mission to bring William home, and Moses was found living in his house in the 1870 Census. When Prescott died, the McLeods held a joint funeral at their home for both William McLeod and John Prescott. Sarah McLeod Prescott, dressed in red, sat at the head of the stairs holding her infant son (just six weeks old) while she sang hymns over the coffins. After that, mother Mary’s condition was met – William’s casket was taken to the new McLeod family cemetery and buried alongside John Prescott’s. McLeod’s grave bore a fine stone (modern visitors note it has since broken and fallen). Only then did the long vigil end.

The seven-year vigil is understood today as an extreme expression of Southern mourning. It reflected a deep belief – common in rural Georgia – that the dead must not be left alone and that a mother’s promise, once given, must be honored. (Some historians note similar antebellum customs of extended wake or delayed burial in the South, though McLeod’s case is unusually long.)