Civil War Orphan

So when I was looking through my family records for the storytelling assignment I came across I sheet of paper that said "Application of Brothers and Sisters for Arrears of Pay and Bounty" at the top and I was intrigued.  I didn't know what that meant so I read further.  The document is dated 9 March, 1866 and states that "Nancy Johnson aged 12 years residing near New Market in Harrison County Ohio and James W. Crawford her legal guardian" appeared in front of a Justice of the Peace.  

I was confused because James Crawford is my relative, but I had never heard about anyone named Johnson in my family.  Upon reading further I discovered that this Nancy Johnson had previously lived with her older brother, Thomas, who also lived in Harrison County.  He was a Private in Company K of the 170^th Regiment of the Ohio National Guard.  He died on August 12, 1864 in Sandy Hook Maryland. So Nancy was adopted in 1866 by my relatives.

He was stated as having no surviving relatives other than Nancy, which made Nancy an orphan of the Civil War.  I looked up the Official Roster of Ohio Soldiers in the Civil War. Apparently the Ohio Voluntary Infantry was sent to the eastern theater of the war in order to hold supply chains for Grant’s forces.  However, they ended up being engaged in combat and there were plenty of casualties. 

Sandy Hook, Maryland is just over three miles away from Harper’s Ferry, and Company K ended up being sent to fight the Confederates in the Battle of Harper’s Ferry.  This is where Thomas Johnson was wounded and he later died after he was transported back to Sandy Hook.  He is listed as being interred at Antietam. 

I still don’t understand why I have never heard the story of how Nancy Johnson came to be adopted by my ancestors or anything about her story. I also don’t know why it would have taken two years for her to be adopted after her brother’s death.  And where did she reside when he was sent away in the first place?  Their parents were not alive at the time of Thomas’s death so I don’t know where she would have been while he was away. 

This single sheet of paper is so intriguing and I was able to find a surprising amount out about Thomas because he was in the military during one of the most significant periods in our history, but it is frustrating to not find anything about Nancy.  

Sources: 

Application of Brothers and Sisters for Arrears of Pay and Bounty, Harrison County Ohio, 1866.

Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1866. Akron Ohio: Werner, 1886.