Fannie
America Frances Sims is one of those people who would have entirely disappeared from history had she not married Hiram Granbury. He was 27, and she was 20. Known as Fannie, she was born in Alabama in 1838. Nothing else is known about her early life or family. The next data point we have is that she married Hiram at Waco in 1858.
When the Civil War began, Hiram went to Marshall to join the 7th Texas, and decided that Fannie would travel with him. Hiram went north to fight with the Army of Tennessee. On his way, he arranged for her to lodge with a family in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Unfortunately, Hiram was one of many Confederates taken prisoner after the fall of Fort Donelson. Major Granbury asked Union General Ulysses S. Grant to delay his imprisonment until he could situate his wife, who was then in Clarksville, Tennessee. Grant agreed.
Dr. Charles MacGill was also taken prisoner. Both men were to be incarcerated at Fort Warren Prison in Boston Harbor. MacGill arranged for Fannie to stay with Mrs. MacGill at their home in Hagerstown, Maryland.
Fannie had always been frail and in poor health. In Maryland, her condition worsened. Mrs. MacGill made an appointment for Fannie to meet with a famous surgeon. He diagnosed that she suffered from ovarian cancer and scheduled her for surgery in Baltimore. Hiram was paroled in August 1862 to allow him to go to Baltimore and comfort Fannie.
The surgery never took place. Fannie’s cancer was too far advanced, and she only had a few months to live. Hiram took her back to her father's house in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She suffered terribly until her death on March 20, 1863, just five days before their fifth wedding anniversary. The poverty of her family compounded the tragedy. Unable to purchase a headstone, Fannie was buried in an unmarked grave which, despite repeated efforts to locate, has never been found.
Hiram became a tragic character, haunted by the death of his father, his college mentor and best friend, and, most of all, by the loss of his dearest Fannie. I think on the night before what he knew was a suicide mission at Franklin, he thought about his life. The ghosts of grief haunted his memories. He decided he would obey his orders, accept John Bell Hood’s death march, and find his Fannie waiting for him.
Dr. David K. Barnett
Granbury History
