The rest of John’s career is sketchy from this point on. 

On 22 December 1870, John would marry Miss Carrie Doughty in Nashville, TN – she being 20 years old and he being 32 years old.

The following are the nine children of John and Carrie with dates of birth and death as known:

John would begin a fairly successful career of carpentry.  As there was massive amounts of war damage everywhere, his talents would be needed to help build his home and the area’s homes and business’.  After about six years (1876), John expanded and added an undertaker’s business. Then, two years later, he added a blacksmith shop and began manufacturing wagons.

John was a stouthearted Democrat. He joined the Mason’s (Masonic Fraternity, Hess Lodge No. 93) about the time he married his wife in 1870. He and his wife were devout members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South in Dyersburg where he taught Sunday school until his death.

John was also a member of a post-civil war unit known as Dawson’s Bivouac.

There are a few high points in his life that are known:

In April 1901, John went to the cemetery at Ashwood, TN near Columbia, TN to retrieve General Strahl’s body (as you may remember this was John’s commander when he enlisted in May 1861 as a Dyer Guard).  General Strahl was killed in the battle of Franklin on 30 Nov. 1864 and his body had been buried at Ashwood, TN.   John was there at that Battle.  There was some discussion by the people of Columbia, TN to move his body to the Confederate burial cemetery in Columbia.  John and a comrade (Mr. David Shaw – also from Dyersburg) had gone to Ashwood to escort and take home General Strahl's body for reburial. When John returned the General’s body to Dyersburg, there was a surprisingly large attendance of veterans at the public service held in Dyersburg for this General. The General was and is currently buried in the same cemetery where John is buried.

In 1905, John (and I suspect his wife) visited the Franklin, TN battlefield and removed some timber from the siding of an old Gin house where he had fought during the battle of Franklin.  From this wood, he made some gavels (quantity unknown) and sent one to the Egbert F. Jones camp (#367, UCV, Huntsville, AL,) for their use. Other gravel locations are unknown.  I am currently trying to get a picture of this gravel – if it still exists.

I am quite sure John and his wife visited her relatives while visiting the Franklin battlefield.

Around the turn of the century, an abbreviated story of John's life was taken by the Dyer County Goodspeed Biographies and published in 1887 for future historical information.

On 21 February 1907, John died in his hometown of Dyersburg and is buried in the old Dyersburg cemetery near the downtown area.

As for his wife Carrie, when John died, she lost the business and at some time later moved to Memphis, TN to be near some of her children. 

At that time, four girls and three boys were living.  Two sons (John Jr. and Walker K. McGinnis) were working for the Illinois Central Railroad in Memphis, TN., one son was unemployed, two daughters were nurses, and two were married. 

She applied for and received a Widow’s Indigent Pension as a Confederate soldier's widow from the state of Tennessee on 13 February 1914.  This was a very difficult thing to apply for back in those days. I have been told that the actual pension was probably less than $20.00 a month, but that was a lot of money back then.

On 16 June 1927, Carrie McGinnis died in Memphis.  She is buried in Dyersburg, next to John.