William Eugene Yeatman,

Died Knoxville, Tennessee,

February 27, 1917.

by Terry Foenander.


As of early August, 2008, it has been noted that Mr. Gray has removed his biography of this person, an obvious result of Gray's having noted all the evidence shown at this web site. However, the damage has already been done, since his numerous errors and inaccuracies (which are included on every single biography at his web site), have now spread all across the Internet.

William Eugene Yeatman was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 21, 1842.   His parents were William T., and Amelia Yeatman, both of Nashville.   Just prior to the Civil War he was working as a store clerk at Nashville, and he is shown in the 1860 United States census, as a Tennessee born seventeen year old clerk, residing with other clerks, a book keeper, and a grocery merchant at a store in the 1st Ward, City of Nashville.   He served, during the Civil War, in company C (Cumberland Rifles) of the 2nd Tennessee Infantry, and was promoted captain.   His exemplary service during the war is undisputed, and it is not the purpose of this article to prove such service, but to prove that Captain Yeatman was never in Australia at any time, had never been to Australia, and is most definitely not buried in the state of Victoria, Australia, as claimed by one so called “researcher.


Page from the 1860 United States Census, that shows the entry for William E. Yeatman, born in Tennessee, aged 17, and employed as a clerk.

After the war Yeatman continued residing in Tennessee, with a brief period in the state of Texas, where he married Kentucky born Mollie Henry Hill, in April, 1885.   They returned to Tennessee in June of 1887, and resided at Knoxville, in Knox County, as well as a period in Sullivan County, Tennessee.   William continued in his occupation as a clerk and book keeper, and is also shown as an insurance collector in the 1910 United States census.   A newspaper report, in an 1894 issue of the Knoxville Journal states that he was, after returning from Texas, employed by the firm of Dick, Payne and Company of Knoxville, and then was with the East Tennessee National Bank.   In February, 1894, Yeatman was appointed as assistant postmaster, the newspaper reporting that, “It is stated further, that the new assistant postmaster was captain of a company in Senator Bates’ regiment during the war, and very naturally has a warm place in the senators mind.   Capt. Yeatman has a family and lives near Fountain City.   His salary will be $1,800 a year.”  


Page from the 1890 census showing William, born July, 1842, as a book keeper, residing at Sullivan County, Tennessee, with wife, Mollie, and their three children.

The Knoxville Journal article of February, 1894, giving some details of William Eugene's appointment as assistant postmaster. [Page provided through the kind courtesy of Gay Mathis, of Tennessee.]

William and Mollie had three children from their marriage, and, from all the available accounts, at no time is there any evidence that William Eugene Yeatman was ever in Australia, and obviously had nothing to do with Australia.   He wrote at least one account of his service during the war, which account is held at the Tennessee State Library and Archives.   He received a Confederate pension from the state of Tennessee, and it is a well known fact that Confederate pensions were only ever paid to former Confederate soldiers and sailors who had served honorably, and who were resident in the state of their application.   No Confederate pensions were ever paid to any Confederate veterans living in foreign nations.   William Eugene Yeatman received a Confederate pension from the state of Tennessee, and, after his death at Knoxville, Tennessee, on February 27, 1917, Mollie applied for a widow’s pension, also from the state of Tennessee.   In Mollie’s application for the Confederate widow’s pension, her sister, Ella Ledgerwood, filled out a witness’s form to support her sister’s claim for the pension, dated in March, 1917, and answers several questions about the service and later life of William Eugene Yeatman.   When questioned about where William Eugene Yeatman, her brother in law, had resided at the time of his death, and for how long he had been a resident of Tennessee at the time of his death, she answered: ‘In Knoxville, Tennessee, where he had lived for the last thirty years,” and to the question of how she knew all these facts about William Eugene Yeatman, she answered: “As his sister in law, I have lived close beside him for nearly thirty years.”   Thus there is absolutely no doubt that William Eugene Yeatman had never ever been in Australia, and any suggestion that he was in Australia, and had died in the state of Victoria, in Australia, is based on mere speculation, due to sheer laziness in not conducting any proper research on this person.


Pages from the pension application file of Mollie H. Yeatman, including a detail from the page showing the place and date of death of her husband.




Additional pages from Mollie's pension file, showing more important data relating to William Eugene Yeatman.

The claims that a person, also named William Yeatman, who had died in the town of Colac, in the state of Victoria, Australia, on June 17, 1922, had served as captain in company C of the 2nd Tennessee Infantry, during the Civil War, were made and published by American Civil War Round Table of Queensland member, Jim Gray, and it is fairly obvious that Mr. Gray had not taken up the “Responsibilities of a Researcher” (as he so deftly puts it at his web site) and done the required amount of research before coming to his usual inaccurate conclusions.


The first page of the online biography of William Yeatman, by American Civil War Round Table of Queensland member, Jim Gray, well known for his numerous assumptions and incorrect data.

The following are only some of the inaccuracies shown at Gray’s web site, about Captain William Eugene Yeatman, and I have included the facts, as shown in documents obtained from a number of sources, which sources should have been consulted by Mr. Gray, before he decided to publish his ridiculous conclusions:

Gray: “John and Mary had two children, ‘William’ who was born on October 16, 1845 at Hobart Town...”

Fact: William Eugene Yeatman was born in Nashville, Tennessee, July 21, 1842, and his parents were William T., and Amelia Yeatman.

Gray: “William seems to have disappeared at about sixteen years of age and did not reappear on any records in Australia until he moved to Victoria in 1872.”

Fact: William Eugene Yeatman was living in Nashville, the place of his birth until at least the time of the Civil War.   He is shown in the 1860 census as a clerk working at a store in Nashville, with post war residences in Texas and Tennessee.   The only disappearances from Mr. Gray’s account are the facts.

Gray: “It is said that when William dropped from sight in his teenage years, he somehow made his way to America and served in the American Civil War; according one [sic] record as William E. Yeatman and according to the Regimental Roster, under the name of William E. Yateman.   The addition of the “E” to his name, and perhaps the spelling of the last name, may have been an attempt to disguise his real identity due to his age; or the spelling may have just been one of many such errors during that period.”

Fact:   No disguise of any sort was required by William Eugene Yeatman, as he lived all of his early life in Nashville, and nowhere else, until he joined the 2nd Tennessee Infantry.   He is thoroughly recorded on pre- and post war census records, was a clerk in Nashville, and his proper age and name are shown at all times.   The words “it is said” are three common words that occur time and time again in Gray’s biographies, when he does not know the facts, nor is willing to pay for the documentation that show such facts.   Sheer laziness for someone who aspires to be a researcher!

Gray:   “After the war William returned to Australia and was married in Elliminyt, Colac, Victoria on April 10, 1882 at the age of thirty-seven, to Christina Thompson Christie.”

Fact:   William Eugene Yeatman, who had served in company C of the 2nd Tennessee Infantry never went to Australia at any time, and was married in Texas to Mollie Henry Hill, in April, 1885.

Gray:   “William Yeatman died at age 77 on Saturday, June 17, 1922, at his home in Elliminyt in Colac, Victoria.   He was buried in the Colac Cemetery, Presbyterian Section, Section 10, HS N, Alt. 20, in Colac, Victoria; record number 13494.”

Fact:   William Eugene Yeatman, who had served as captain in company C of the 2nd Tennessee Infantry, died at Knoxville, Tennessee, February 27, 1917, and is buried in that city, and no where else.   It is all well and good to state that the William Yeatman who died at Colac in 1922 was buried in the Colac Cemetery and ramble on about section and grave number, but it is not the same person, and never will be, no matter how much Gray wants to fudge the facts.   The truth is that people want to know the truth and not assumptions made because a person has the same name.   To obtain the truth, one has to be prepared to pay for copies of documentation and not twist the facts around to fit a wannabe researcher’s version of the truth.

Sources:

1860 United States Census for the city of Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee.

1900 United States Census for Sullivan County, Tennessee.

1910 United States Census for the Second District, Knox County, Tennessee.

“Biography of James Patton,” web site at http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/patton/patton.xml with text scanned by Bill McGloughlin, text encoded by Natalia Smith, 1996; Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Confederate Widow’s Indigent Pension of Mollie H. Yeatman, No. 6673, State of Tenneessee.

Gay Mathis, researcher, who supplied some crucial research material on William Eugene Yeatman, as well as a post war newspaper clipping.

“Memories of the War of the State by Captain William Eugene Yeatman,” an item written by Ernestine Y. Munn, 1953, and available on microfilm roll no. 16, box 53, item 20, at the Tennessee State Library and Archives, 403 Seventh Avenue North, Nashville, Tennessee.

For more inaccurate biographies, see "A Litany of Errors."

Page Created, May, 2008 (Updated August, 2008).