Sanford Vandiver Moore, born on October 10, 1832, in Oconee County, South Carolina, moved to Monroe County, Tennessee, by 1850. By 1860, he was a blacksmith in Webster County, Missouri.

Moore joined Company B, 8th Missouri Cavalry, at Marshfield, Missouri, on July 20, 1862, and was mustered into service on July 30, 1862, as a private. He was promoted to first sergeant on August 1862, to second lieutenant in March 1863, to first lieutenant in July 1863, and finally to captain in January 1865 (and transferred to Company F).

Moore resigned from the army in February 1865. In his resignation letter, he explained that “circumstances over which I have had no control” had placed his five small children, the eldest only thirteen years old, “in a helpless condition.” “Unavoidably separated” from their guardian, “they cannot avert destitution and want without my personal aid and assistance,” he explained, and were growing up “without education and moral training.”

The 8th Missouri Cavalry fought in the Battle of Prairie Grove, the Little Rock campaign, and the 1864 operations against General Joseph Shelby north of the Arkansas River.

Soon after the war, Moore moved to Pawnee County, Nebraska and became a farmer. He died on June 24, 1897, in Pawnee City, Nebraska, and is buried in the Pawnee City Cemetery.

Carte-de-Visite by Griswold & White, Corinth, Mississippi.

Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 12006