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James Thomas Yeager/Jager Born: August 21 1835 in Washington or White, Tennessee. He married Agnes Jane Taylor Born: March 6 1832 in Illinois. Marriage dated: August 6 1854.
They had two children together just before she died. (She may have died in child birth).
Their first son George James (A.K.A. James George) Yeager/Jager Born: 1857 in Arkansas?
Their second son Charles Wesley (who later was known as Charles William) Yeager/Jager Born: 1854/55 in Arkansas?
No birth records were found in Arkansas for either boy. But family has passed down that they were in fact born there and the records were lost or destroyed in one of the many fires during the Civil War.
James Thomas Yeager served with Cocke's Arkansas Infantry. Regiment COG also known as Hawthorn's regiment, the 39th regiment, or PIKS regiment.
After the birth of his second son and his second marriage to the Domestic servant Mary Canutt, James was killed. The family story is that he was pulled from his home by Union Soldiers and hung from a tree in the front yard. His sons James and Charles were witnesses (hiding in the barn or the field) to their father's death and the house being set on fire, burning to the ground.
The boys may have been raised by the neighbors. Some say they claimed to have raised themselves.
Just what happened to their step-mother remains a mystery. Some say she burnt in the fire. Some say she just left the boys on their own because they were not of her blood. No one knows.
The boys took on seemingly new identities and "forgot" about their parents. Their father James Thomas Yeager, mother Agnes Jane and stepmother Mary canutt were eliminated from the family picture up until approx. 2002. The boys raised their own families with the notion that they did not know who their parents were. Stories were passed down about their deaths but no one knew their identities.
I have recently found out, after discovering their identities, that James Thomas Yeager was a cousin to the notorious Richard "Dick" Francis Yeager. A lieutentant with William Clark Quatrill's army. James T. Yeager's relation or possilbe affiliation with Dick Yeager may explain his death by Union soldiers. It may also explain why his two sons and their families kept his identity a "secret" for so many generations.
Seeing as how all parties involved are dead and two generations have passed. The real story remains a romantic mystery.

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