Real Son H. V. Booth in a moment of solemn reflection as he stands among the graves of men who died while serving with his father as Confederate guards at Camp Sumter (Andersonville). Confederate Memorial Service, Oak Grove Cemetery, Americus, Ga. Sponsored by the A.H. Stephens Camp SCV, April 23, 2011.

There wasn’t much mouth-to-ear. Isham Booth didn’t talk about the war much to his son. They were too busy working. The elder Booth was a stern man who eked out a living as a sharecropper and died at age 86 in 1934, when his son was 15. Up until the end, he picked 90 to 100 pounds of cotton a day.

It is believed that there are only 2 real sons still remaining in Georgia and 19 nation wide. Near Vidalia, at a crossroads called Tarrytown, lives 84-year-old John McDonald, whose father enlisted with his rifle and horse when he was just 13, following two older brothers.
“We’re the last link,” Booth said in a recent interview. “We’re the last link of the mouth to the ear.”