Lives Between the Dimensions

We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top. In our youths, our hearts were touched by fire."          - Oliver Wendell Holmes, on the young soldiers of the Civil War John W. Moore and Eliza (Elizabeth) Berry Moore were the original hardy souls, leaving the relative tame life of West Tennessee, to enter into the fledgling state of Missouri to the site of what would come to be known as the "Moore Community" in Wayne County, Missouri.  Much is known of the four bothers, all sons of John W. Moore and Eliza Berry Moore that perpetuated the Moore line so prolifically in Wayne County, Missouri.   Their names were Robert Glenn, Daniel, Lewis Doctor, and William Dudley Moore.   But there is more to the family that should be known.   At least twelve children were born to John and Eliza, but only the stories of the four previously named sons are generally known.   This is a historical narrative of traged

BILL, BUDDY, AND ELISHA RAGAN Of Hardeman County, Tennessee and Tippah County, Mississippi By Keith Wayne Ragan ESCAPE FROM FORT DONELSON by John Paul Strain William W. (Bill) Ragan (1843-1864), Paul S. (Buddy) Ragan (1844-1864) [i] , and Elisha W. Ragan (1845-1918) have been a part of our family lore forever.   The boys were all sons of my great-great grandparents Nathaniel Simpson Ragan, (1820-1907) and Mary “Polly” Vincent Ragan (1825-1908), born in Hardeman County, Tennessee, but living just across the state line in Tippah County, Mississippi at the outbreak of the Civil War.   Nearby was the farm of their uncle, Samuel Young Ragan and his family. My grandfather Jacob William Ragan (1894-1972) was the son of Nathaniel Francis Ragan (1863-1926), who in turn was the younger brother of the boys mentioned.   My grandfather had told my father Robert Nathaniel Ragan (1914-2003), the story many times of the brothers differing affiliations and the choosing of different colors and