After all these years of searching to locate the grave of my ancestor, Andrew Jackson Monroe Pennington, b. 30 Oct 1824, m. abt. 1846, d. either 11 Feb 1863 or 20 Feb 1863, I'm pretty sure I have now succeeded! Yea!

Based on my previous information, I believed he died in the Civil War and his date of death was 11 Feb 1863 and that he died near Winchester, Franklin Co., TN. I did have another date of death of 20 Feb, 1863, in Tullahoma, Coffee Co., TN. but I was never able to find any information to support that either.

I've searched all types of records on the Internet, been in contact with hundreds of other Pennington and Civil War researchers but no luck. I spent a few hours in the Tennessee State Archives in 2002 but no luck. I did find some interesting information about Civil War records there but nothing specific to help my research.

Recently I joined www.Footnote.com and starting searching the Confederate Soldier's records they have on file from the National Archives, records for Civil War Soldiers. After many hours of searching many variants of his name, I found information on his wife, Roseda Pennington. Go figure!

I found a record for her in the Southern Claims District where she claimed the US Government owed her $750.00! She said General Sherman's Army was to blame for the loss. She claimed they took several hundred bushels of apples, many barrels of fence nails and a couple of misc. items. On the document she lists several of her children (so that helps support my research) and the name of one of her son-in-laws that I had been looking for evidence to support his marriage to her daughter for some time, and address information, etc.. Yea! I printed the information and saved a copy to my hard disk drive to use later with my genealogy software database.

I kept looking for my gr-gr-grandfather on www.Footnote.com and after many more hours, I was able to find one A.J.M. Pennington (note initials) who was 38 in 1862 when he joined (which would make his date of birth as 1824). He joined in Alabama and the location and date matched some other information I had found before. On this record, it shows he died Feb 20, 1863 in Tullahoma, TN. (which matched the 2nd date and location of his death). The record was from the National Archives, records for Civil War Soldiers, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Alabama, Publisher: NARA; Military Unit: Eighteenth Battalion, Volunteers.

Not only did I find the Civil War record for him, I was able to print a copy of it and to download it to use in my genealogy software program! Everything on the record matched my gr-gr-grandfather, Andrew Jackson Monroe Pennington, b. 30 Oct 1824. Yea! I found him! I was very, very pleased, but now the question was, where is his gravesite?

I started searching other websites and I found a possible match on the Tennessee and Civil War TNGenWeb.org listing for Confederate Virtual Cemetery, Tombstones. On the first website at --> http://www.tngenweb.org/civilwar/vcem/confed/pnames.html, I found this record:
Name: A. J. M. Pennington Rank: Private State Served: Alabama Unit: 18th Infantry Regiment Company: B Date of Death: 20 FEB 1863 Cemetery: Tullahoma Confederate Cemetery Location: Coffee County, TN Section: Grave Number: Submitter: Mitzi P. Freeman Additional Information:

In the second website for Civil War Soldiers, I found a record that matched the first. That record said:
PENNINGTON, A. J. M.18th Bttn. Ala. Inf.,??/??/????Date of Death: 02/20/1863Buried: Maplewood Cem., Co. B, Confederate Section, Tullahoma, Coffee Co., Tennessee

Wow! Could it be? As you can imagine, I'm really excited to know that I may have actually found the gravesite for my gr-gr-grandfather after looking all these years.

I sent messages to both the volunteers who maintained the websites and received a prompt reply from a wonderful lady who is only known to me as Sharon. She "runs" the website on the Confederate Cemetery at Tullahoma, TN.

To learn more about the Cemetery, go to --> http://www.snghere1.homestead.com/confederatecemetery.html.
The cemetery at Tullahoma, TN, is very well maintained and the battles that took place there are well documented.

I now have to update my genealogy software database and then figure out when I can travel to the cemetery and pay my respects.

With this new information I can now say that I can prove our Pennington family lineage back to Benajah Pennington, b. 1770, d. 12 Oct 1855. This is an exciting and rewarding place to be in my research. My forehead was getting a little sore from bumping into all those brick walls!

Now if I can just identify the father of Benajah Pennington, b. 1770, d. 12 Oct 1855! Next challenge!

I have saved his military records in my Gallery and I have added some photographs to my Gallery of the Confederate Cemetery, the Memorial there and the panel showing the name of my gr-gr-grandfather. The pictures were taken by Sharon Goodman who has given consent to share the pictures. Sharon is the host and webmaster for the Grundy County TN Historical Society and their newsletter. If you'd like to look at that site, it is located at www.gchs.homestead.com.

To visit my personal genealogy website go to www.Gene-Pennington.com

To learn more about Pennington surname and history, visit www.PenningtonResearch.org.

Grave and Military Record for AJM Pennington Located - Finally!