Bill and Betsy's sons, John, David, and Daniel, enlisted in the Confederate Army on November 1, 1862, at Haynesville, Tennessee. Andrew Everhart also enlisted with them. It is not known if Andrew was their brother or a cousin.

They were all privates in Company B of the 60th Mounted Infantry, and by Christmas their company was engaged in the fighting near Vicksburg, Mississippi. On the 28th of December less than two months after their enlistment, twenty-one year old John, the father of three small children, was killed during the battle of Chickasaw Bayou. He was buried in the Confederate Cemetery at Vicksburg, and his stone may be found there today among those of the many other young men whose lives were ended there.

By March Andrew was in the hospital at Vicksburg. The last record found of him was in April 1863. He was still listed in the hospital. It is likely he died there.

In May during the battle for Vicksburg, Company B was guarding a bridge on the Big Black River when the Federal Troops overran them and they surrendered. Twenty-three year old David and his younger brother, Daniel, who had just turned twenty in January were captured and taken to Memphis Tennessee. By June they had been moved north to Fort Delaware where David died on July 23rd. He was buried in the Finn's Point National Cemetery at Salem, NJ.

A few weeks after David's death, Daniel was moved to a prisoner of war camp at Point Lookout, Maryland where he spent the winter of 1863. His brother's were all dead except James C. who had chosen to remain home with his wife and children, and now he (Daniel) was the only survivor of the four young men that had enlisted in the Confederate Army that day in November. He was alone and far from his family and home. How lonely he must have been that cold winter spent in prison. Many years later Daniel would sit in a swing on his front porch in Hawkins County and describe the insufferable cold that he had experienced during those winters.

A few days before his twenty-first birthday, Daniel signed the papers for the only way available to go home. He joined the Federal Army. According to the 1890 Tennessee Census of Federal Veterans, Daniel served as a Corporal in A Company of the 1st Tennessee Infantry from 24 January 1864 until 10 May 1866.

On June 12, 1864, James C. Everhart, the oldest son of William and Betsy enlisted in the Federal Army. He was 33 years of age and the father of five sons, the oldest only nine years old.

He served as a Private in Company B 3rd Tennessee Volunteer Mounted Infantry. During October 1864, while serving with his unit at a place called Mossy Creek, Tennessee James contracted disease of the eyes caused from exposure and camp smoke. At the same time and place he also contracted disease of hips and back.

James C. Everhart was honorably dischared from the Federal Army at Knoxville on November 30, 1964.

After 12 years of filing applications for a pension for his service during the War, James C. Everhart was approved for a pension ca. 1912. At the time of his death in 1918, he was receiving $21 a month pension.