Dr. Franklin W. Hamilton, a retired English professor from Flint, Michigan with childhood roots in Southern Illinois, has written a book chronicling the journey of his great-grandmother, who travelled from Tennessee to Illinois during the Civil War. Nancy Hamilton, took her five children (ages 2-15) by wagon and camped and drove west across Tennessee for about 350 miles until she reached the farm of a cousin in Braden Valley, near Dale, in Hamilton County, Illinois. They left their Tennessee home because of threats to their life and property. She did this after losing her husband who, with his brother and several nephews, walked across the Tennessee state line into Kentucky to enlist in the Union Army (5th Tenn. Vol). Harvey lived only about 9 months after his enlistment. He died in the Stones River Battle and is buried in the National Cemetery in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
