Another Confederate veteran and his Doughboy son…

I remembered coming across this image several years back, while writing one of the unit histories for the Virginia Regimental Histories Series. Seated is George William Koontz (1839-1925) of Shenandoah County, Virginia. Though he had relocated to Highland County in 1854, at the opening of the Civil War, he returned to Shenandoah County and enlisted in the Eighth Star New Market Artillery. When that unit was disbanded in October 1862 (due to consolidation of artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia), he was reassigned to the Danville Artillery. He was present at Appomattox as a captain, commanding what was left of the battery. Standing beside him is his son, Lester Koontz, a member of the 42nd/Rainbow Division during the First World War.

The father, a commander of the Shenandoah Camp, United Confederate Veterans, was described as a “Democrat, with Independent tendencies… a temperance man himself opposed to national prohibition and was not in sympathy with The League of Nations.”

* Regular readers might recall the other image I posted a little while back of another father-son pair (Confederate Veteran John W. Grove and son, Arthur Ashby Grove. Though that photo was likely taken prior to 1914, the son later served as a lieutenant in the 29th Division during WWI).

Tagged: Danville Artillery, Eighth Star New Market Artillery, George William Koontz, Lester Koontz, Shenandoah County, Virginia, Woodstock

Posted in: American Civil War, Civil War Memory - General, Memory of the post CW years, The First World War