John Green, where are you?

My great great grandfather was named John Green. He was born about 1820 in South Carolina or was it North Carolina? The only record I have found of him was the 1860 census in Taylor County Florida.

It said he was born in South Carolina but his children on occasion said he was born in North. He didn't appear on the 1870 census and his wife, Sarah Strickland Green was shown as a widow.

He lived for a while in Georgia as his two older children were born there, but since the births were between the 1850-60 census I don't know if he was there in 1850 or not. I haven't found any John Green on the 1850 census that matched him.

Since he died between 1860 and 70 you would suspect it was connected to that widow maker we call the War Between the States. I found several John Greens who enlisted in either the CSA or Union Army from Florida but have slowly ruled them out.

The latest was one John Green who enlisted in the 2nd Florida Calvary of the Union Army. Several Taylor County men enlisted in the 2nd, including one of my other ancestors.

The record showed this John Green enlisted on April 16, 1864 at Fort Myers, Florida but died of disease on June 6, 1865. There was a record of a pension being claimed by his children but none of the records I found listed their names.


I hate having to pay for genealogy research. Some of my family would say it is because I am cheap. I would say it is because I hate to pay to obtain my history. If it is ours, I think we should have access.

In any event, after wondering about this for several years I decided to pay the money for a copy of the pension file. The National Archives charges a flat $25 for the basic file, which is just the application. The fee is higher for the complete correspondence file.

I requested this one online several months ago and just received it. It shows that John Green died of "chronic diarrhea" at the Cedar Keys, Florida hospital on June 6th. That would have to be a terrible death but probably no more than most of the other diseases that took many of the casualties of this war.

The pension application listed the name of his daughter, Florida Green and her date of birth as January 1, 1860. Her mother's maiden name is shown as Jane Houston. This is not my family but at least it answered the question and I can look elsewhere.

I looked for Jane and Florida Green on subsequent census records but didn't find them. I've put copies of the pension application here in case it helps someone else.