John E. Robuck
John E. Robuck was born October 19, 1837 in Marshall County Mississippi.
His parents were John Robuck Jr. and Malvina Mahala Oliver. While still
an infant, the Robuck family moved to Yocona, Lafayette County Mississippi.
Not much detail is known of the Robuck family before the War Between the States. Census and tax records do show that the Robuck family were farmers like most of their neighbors and owned six slaves. The Robuck family would eventually have 11 children in all including John.
Not much is known about the childhood of John Robuck. It is certain that John did move away at some time and married a Henrietta Markett. Census records for Karnes County, TX state that John was a 23-year-old clerk from Mississippi living in Helena, TX, dwelling #1236, and family #1199. Henrietta was listed as 19 years of age.
It is uncertain why John and his newlywed wife returned to Mississippi, but it is certain that he was in Mississippi before February 15th, 1862 (enlistment in the 29th). Theories are that when the war started John felt his call to return to his home State of Mississippi.
John E. Robuck and his younger brother William Bruce Robuck joined the 29th Mississippi Infantry Regiment on February 15th, 1862 at Oxford, Mississippi.
Like so many men of the 29th Mississippi Infantry, John Robuck was a determined soldier. His bravery was second to none. John would fight with distinction for 2 years until a severe wound at Chickamauga where he was placed on a "retired list".
John E. Robuck is best known for his superb writing in the memoir, "MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND OBSERVATION As A SOLDIER IN THE ONFEDERATE Army During The Civil War, 1861-1865,Also During the Period of Reconstruction.” His book “My OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE…” was not his first book. According to John E. Robuck’s “prefatory explanation in the aforementioned book he tells how he is survived by staying under the care off the “Jefferson Davis Memorial Confederate Soldiers’ Home" at Beauvoir, Miss. He goes on to write that he couldn’t stand being idle and decided to write the “…Life story of Archie McDonald”.
“Having no family, and abhorring the idea of becoming a "parasite"
to another’s family or a burden to any community, as a last resort I
applied and was admitted to the "Jefferson Davis Memorial Confederate
Soldiers’ Home" at Beauvoir, Miss. There the "old veterans" are
well cared for in almost every respect. They are furnished with plenty
of good, wholesome food and are well clothed. Their rooms are furnished
with care. They are furnished with chewing and smoking tobacco and pipes.
In fact, they get all the common comforts of life. But any man, regardless
of age, who has always worked for his living, or who has any manhood,
ambition or energy left, just to stay there and read, sleep, eat, and
brood over the sad fact that he is only waiting there to die in idleness,
will soon rust out and die with sheer inactivity. I really believe now
that, had I been forced to remain there in the same condition, instead
of being forced out, I would either be dead or confined in a lunatic
asylum. While there, I borrowed a small amount of money, which I invested
in stationery, and wrote "The Life Story of Archie McDonald." I eventually
succeeded in having it published. From April 1907 to April 1911, I have
traveled, selling the books in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee
and Florida. During these four years I have sold, individually, eleven
thousand copies of Archie McDonald. And, strange to say that among the
eleven thousand, or rather, perhaps, among the one hundred thousand
people that I have approached with my book, only two have ever spoken
to me in a rough or unkind manner. One of these was a little self-important
jackleg lawyer at Franklin, Tenn.; the other was a bombastic bulldog-looking
merchant at Macon, Miss…”
