Military Records: Thomas O. Sanders, Confederate Vet, 1995, Winn Parish, LA
Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483
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From: June 14, 1995 Winn Parish Enterprise News-American

Confederate Soldier Remembered

There's a new tombstone at the Magnolia Cemetery about two miles out of
Tullos.  

No, not because someone just died but because a Confederate soldier was
remembered.

Thomas O. Sanders enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1862 for a three year
hitch.  He received a bounty of $50 and he served in the 28th Infantry,
Company E.

When a great grandson, D. C. Sanders, Jr., discovered he could receive a
tombstone for his relative, the family immediately began to work toward that
goal.

The Sanders family came into Winn Parish between 1840 and 1850.  Three
brothers, Travis, Moses, and Isaac came from Mississippi to this location.

Thomas was the son of Travis Sanders.  Travis was born in 1796 in South
Carolina.  He married a Miss Gates and moved to Rankin County, Mississippi
where most of the children were born.  The family is still searching for
Travis' grave.  Moses Sanders moved up to Coldwater where Sanders Chapel is
today and Isaac moved on.

The family was listed in the 1850 census of the parish.  (This is in error. 
There was no 1850 census of Winn Parish.  The area of Magnolia Cemetery, east
Winn Parish would have been in the 1850 Catahoula Parish census.  The Sanders
Community, or what would be Coldwater in the early 1900s, would have been in 
Natchitoches Parish in 1850).  In 1879 the family founded the cemetery and
called it the Sanders Graveyard.  The oldest graves in the cemetery are those
of the Pace children who died in 1879.

There are numerous grave of people who died during the 1880s. 

In 1924, the name changed to Magnolia Cemetery.  Today it is a family
cemetery.

"I have five generations of family buried there," said Sanders.

They are proud of the headstone the government provided for Thomas' grave. 
They note that Travis was a veteran of the War of 1812 and D. C. was a veteran
of Korea.

In order to get the headstone, Sanders went to Baton Rouge and looked up his
relative's war records.  He made an application through the Veterans
Administration and received the 230 pound stone that was placed on Monday.