Shrouded by Mystery: The Search For Fannie Sims Granbury

Fannie Sims Granbury: Shrouded By Mystery

Rebecca Blackwell Drake

The old saying, Gone But Not Forgotten, was by no means the case with Fannie Sims Granbury, the 25-year-old wife of Major Hiram B. Granbury. On a cold winter day in March of 1863, Fannie was buried in Mobile; her husband too poor to afford a headstone or a cemetery plot. She was placed in a plot provided by friends and buried with no marking. Since that time, records of her death and burial have been lost to historians.

The lives of Hiram and Fannie Granbury began in 1858 when the couple married in Waco, Texas. Fannie, a native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was twenty years old at the time and Granbury was twenty-seven. Granbury was a well-known judge and a highly respected citizen of Waco. When the war erupted, he answered the 'call to his Southland' by organizing the Waco Guards, a militia group from McLennan County, and marched to Marshall, Texas. Here, his group joined with nine other counties to form the 7th Texas Infantry. The war was young and the soldiers' hopes were high. Fannie's hopes were high as well as she followed her husband to war.

Unexpectedly, within months, the 7th Texas and other Confederate regiments were captured at Fort Donelson. Before Granbury could be transported to prison he requested permission to settle his wife who had been staying with the family of Mr. Steven Trice in Hopkinsville. When the weather turned frigid, she was moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, a short distance away, to stay with friends. Surprisingly, General Grant granted the request. On March 4, 1862, after a brief prison stay at Fort Chase, Granbury and the other officers were informed that they would be moved to Fort Warren Prison in Boston Harbor. Refusing to leave her husband's side, Fannie accompanied Hiram and the other officers on the train to Boston. Granbury remained at Fort Warren prison for five months before being exchanged.

Prison life for Granbury was tolerable since, along with John Gregg and Randal McGavock, he was quartered in the facility for officers. Prison regulations would not allow Fannie on the premise so she traveled to Hagerstown, Maryland. While in Hagerstown she resided with the family of Dr. Charles MacGill, Hiram's new cell mate. Dr. MacGill had been one of the most prominent doctors in the east until he was arrested for being a Southern sympathizer. In July of 1862, Fannie began to experience health problems. There was an unexplained swelling in her abdomen and she was constantly nauseated and fatigued. Dr. MacGill took matters in his own hands and referred her to Dr. Nathan Smith, one of the finest of the surgeons in Baltimore.

An appointment was made and Hiram received an early parole from Fort Warren in order to meet his wife in Baltimore. They events of what happened in Baltimore are unclear. If they met with Dr. Smith it was brief and no surgery was performed. Within hours of the appointment, they sailed for Richmond in order to join other exchange prisoners. At some point, either while in Baltimore or Richmond, Fannie learned the news that she was suffering from inoperable ovarian cancer and had only months to live. She was 24 years old at the time.

After leaving Richmond, Fannie and Hiram took a train heading for Jackson, Mississippi, the site where the 7th Texas Infantry would meet to reorganize. En route, Hiram dropped Fannie off at Tuscaloosa so she could be cared for by family and friends. Sadly, Hiram rejoined the war efforts while Fannie enduring the final days and months of her life.

On March 20, 1863, eleven days before their 5th wedding anniversary, Fannie passed away at the age of 25. At the time, Hiram was stationed at Port Hudson, Louisiana, but he hastened to be by her side and then to bury her following her death. The funeral was March 21 from the Providence Infirmary in Mobile but few were present to mourn her departure. Afterwards she was buried in an unmarked grave in Magnolia Cemetery and lost to history with the passing of years.

Following Fannie's death, Col. Granbury returned to Port Hudson then on to Raymond, Mississippi, where he led the 7th Texas Infantry in the Battle of Raymond. His constant cohort on and off the battlefield was General John Gregg. More than anyone, this old friend knew the extent of Granbury's personal loss.

Even though the Battle of Raymond was a disaster for the Confederate forces, Col. Granbury performed brilliantly. He continued on to Chickamauga where he was wounded by a bullet that struck his lower abdomen. On February 29, 1864, he was commissioned brigadier general- an honor that his wife had not lived to see. Nine months later Granbury led his brigade in the Battle of Franklin and was killed in action. Initially Brig. Gen. H. B. Granbury was buried near the battlefield but later he was re-interred at the Ashwood Cemetery south of Columbia, Tennessee. In 1893, his body was exhumed and re-interred in Granbury, Texas, a town named in his honor.

Since 1893, General Granbury has been hailed a hero and his grave viewed annually by thousands of visitors. On the other hand, for 139 years, Fannie Sims Granbury has been resting in an unmarked grave hundreds of miles away, completely forgotten. The only tangible reminder of Fannie is a death notice dated March 21, 1863: "DIED on yesterday, at 11 o'clock A. M., Mrs. Fannie Granbury, aged 25 years. Wife of Col. H. B. Granbury, 7th Regiment Texas Infantry. The funeral will take place from the Providence Infirmary, at 3 o'clock P. M. TODAY."

The shroud of mystery has finally been lifted. Fannie Granbury was not left behind to die in a cold and hostile northern state - a victim of war, as once was believed. The young wife was simply a victim of a tragic fate and the heartbreaking circumstances of the time.

Sources: Compiled Service Records for the State of Texas; Obituary of Mrs. Fannie Granbury in Mobile Advertiser and Register, March 21, 1863 (discovered in January 2002); Intrepid Gray Warriors, 7th Texas Infantry 1861-1865 by James Newsom; Force Without Fanfare, Reminiscences of Gen. K. M. VanZandt; 1862 letters of Dr. and Mrs. Charles MacGill, courtesy of Duke University; and The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Vol. 24.

Credit for finding the burial site and obituary of Fannie Sims Granbury goes to: Edward Lanham, Brooks, Georgia; Mary Eddins Johnson, Mobile, Alabama and Jane Embrose, descendant of Gen. Granbury. Lanham researched cemetery records in Baltimore, Mobile and Waco and located the body. Johnson researched the archives and Mobile and found the death records as well as the obituary.