Chapter 8: The Civil War Generation and Beyond
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his chapter contains information on the RICHARD descendants who fought in the Civil War as well as information on any particularly colorful or interesting descendants who came along after the war. Information on the descendants of Francis II are included in Chapter 6.
With the exception of one biracial descendant of Francis II, all the RICHARD men all fought, naturally, on the side of the Confederacy.
The RICHARD Family Code As mentioned previously, for centuries the FRANÇOIS family had been known and rewarded for their fierce loyalty to their sovereigns, the dukes of Lorraine. This loyalty “gene” seems to have mutated a bit during the first few generations of the RICHARD family in the United States. Sparsely populated Florida in the 19th century was not a very hospitable environment for its inhabitants. Creating and maintaining strong family bonds was one way to promote survival. Among members of the evergrowing RICHARD clan, there developed a “RICHARD Family Code” that served to bond and protect its members, while at the same time intimidating and striking fear into anyone who might go against a RICHARD. Stephen RiCharde, a descendant of Joseph Robert RICHARD, shared the following perspective on the RICHARD family reputation and its code: There is also a set of family myths, and, like most myths, there is a strong streak of reality therein about the reputation of the family as a rather harsh, even mean, group who stuck together in clan-like fashion in order to survive the harshness of the environment. My grandmother told me that even in her day, turn-of-the-century Florida, the RICHARDs were called "old settlers," which carried with it the connotation of "clan-like" and "not to be bothered." I have read accounts of a "RICHARD family code" which said that if anyone hurt or killed a RICHARD another member of the family would avenge the deed within a year and face-to-face. Much of the RICHARD reputation comes from some specific altercations and actions on the part of the family to uphold the family code. We also know individual pre-Civil-War stories like the one about the RICHARD who refused to be buried in the RICHARD cemetery and has a small gravesite across the dirt road from the cemetery. He said he refused to be buried with all those other RICHARDs because on judgment day "hell's gonna be a-poppin' in that cemetery," and he didn't wish to be dragged into hell accidentally.1 Many events from the lives of many RICHARD men described in this chapter attest to the fact, rather than myth, of the Code. The most specific reference to this RICHARD family reputation comes