A while back I received a gift from a 91-years-young cousin. He had all the pages of his mother’s
scrapbook scanned and copies sent to me.
Among the newspaper clippings was an obituary “Death of Mrs. Samuel
Herbert”. Mrs. Samuel Herbert was born
Jane Lewis. The notice mentions that she
was predeceased by her brother, John Lewis, who died in Andersonville Prison. This was news to me – I had never heard this
before.
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| Jane Lewis Herbert Obituary |
What did I know about my 3rd Great-Grand Uncle? John Lewis was born about 1831-32 in Dutchess
County, New York to John Lewis and Esther Hudson. His parents were born and married in
Yorkshire, England and came to the US shortly before he was born. John had two older sisters, Sarah, and Ann
Jane, called Jane or Jennie, my 3rd great-grandmother, who were both
born in England.
According to the Portrait
and Biographical Album of Livingston County (1888), John Lewis (the father
of John)…”came to America with his family in 1831, settled in the city of New York,
where he engaged in the manufacture of boots and shoes, afterward removing to
Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, and engaging in the same business, which
occupation he followed until he died.”
On 14 August 1850, John is enumerated in the US Federal
Census living in the town of Fishkill in Dutchess County, New York. He is an eighteen year old shoemaker, living
with his parents John and Esther and his married sister Sarah and her husband Phillip
Ward. His sister Jane had married Samuel
Herbert in 1848 and lived nearby in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Sometime between 1850 and 1860, John’s father John died and
he and his mother moved west to Illinois with his two sisters and their
husbands. According to his brother-in-law Samuel Herbert’s obituary the Herbert
family came to Illinois in 1857. It
would be reasonable to believe that John and his mother traveled with them, if
his father had already died.
On 5 July 1860, John is enumerated in the US Federal Census
living in Pontiac, Livingston County, Illinois.
He is listed as a Plastering Mason, living with his widowed mother Esther
in the home of his brother-in-law and sister, Samuel and Jane Herbert, along
with their children.
In June 1863, he registered for the draft in Livingston
County. He entered the service 5 Jan 1864,
with a muster date of 12 Jan 1864 at Joliet, Illinois as a Private in Company K
of the 39th Illinois Infantry.
He was about 32 years old.
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| Draft registration - Civil War |
I looked for evidence that John was in and/or died
in Andersonville Prison. I checked www.Ancestry.com
for John Lewis and found 2 possible
suspects in the Andersonville Prisoner of
War database but no exact match. There
were also a number of John Lewis’ named in the US Army, Register of Enlistments database but again no exact
match. So I wondered did he really die
at Andersonville or was he just a prisoner there? I was suspicious of a newspaper account 30
years after the fact.
I went to www.Fold3.com and checked the NARA database of Civil War Pension Files of Veterans Who Served Between
1861 and 1900. There were two men
listed as John Lewis that requested pensions on their own behalf as invalids: John Lewis, Private, Illinois, Infantry,
Regiment 90, Company D and John Lewis, Corporal, Illinois Infantry, Regiment
111, Company H. Another request was from
the mother of John Lewis, Private, Illinois Infantry, Regiment 39, Company K
who died at Andersonville Prison on September 23, 1864. This last one looked promising, but was it
really MY John Lewis?
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| Pension Index |
I went to check www.cyberdriveillinois.com
for Illinois Civil War Muster and
Descriptive Rolls. In the Illinois regiments
listing I found over 25 men named John Lewis on the muster rolls, including the
three from the pension database. I was
able to see (and save) the Illinois Civil War Detail report on my three
suspects. This detail report includes
Name, Rank, Residence, Age, Height, Hair
and Eye color, Complexion, Marital status, Occupation, Location of birth; when and where
they joined; where and when they mustered in and out of service; and remarks
including notes about discharge and where they were taken prisoner. I was
able to verify that the John Lewis who died in Andersonville Sep 23, 1864 was my John Lewis. His
report showed that he was born in Dutchess County, New York, a mason and was “taken prisoner May 16, 1864 at Drury’s Bluff,
Virginia.”
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| John Lewis Military Detail |
I
found the History of the 39th Regiment of the Illinois Infantry (John Lewis’ unit) and saved this excerpt (highlights are mine):
“After the Regiment had been recruited to
seven hundred and fifty (750) strong, it left, early in March 1864, for
Washington, D.C., and from thence sailed to Georgetown, Virginia, where in was
assigned to the First Brigade, First Division, Tenth Army Corps. It then
embarked, the 5th day of May 1864, with General Butler's expedition
up the James River. On reaching Bermuda Hundred, the Regiment took the advance
on the march into the interior for several miles, when the entire command was
halted, and entrenchment’s thrown up. After remaining for a day or two, the
whole column was moved forward to Drury's Bluff. The Thirty-ninth was
located on the extreme left of General Butler's command on the 16th of May
1864, when the entire force under Butler was attacked and driven back. The
Regiment was at one time completely surrounded by the enemy, but succeeding in
cutting their way out, after great loss. To use General Butler's own words,
"the Thirty-ninth fought most gallantly, and have suffered most
severely". Colonel Osborn, Major Linton, Captain Phillips, Captain
Wheeler, Lieutenant Kidder and Lieutenant Kingsbury were all wounded - the
latter losing an arm. Captain James Wightman and Adjutant J. D. Walker were
killed while gallantly cheering on the men. The entire loss in this engagement,
including killed, wounded and missing, reached nearly 200 hundred (200).” The
entire history of the regiment can be found at http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/reghist.pdf.
John
and the other prisoners were taken first to Libby Prison in Richmond Virginia. His mother may have seen the following newspaper
article.
At some point John and his fellow prisoners were transferred
to Andersonville. According to the Civil War Trust web site: “The first
prisoners were brought to Andersonville in late February 1864. During the next
few months, approximately 400 more arrived each day. By the end of June, 26,000
men were penned in an area originally meant for only 10,000 prisoners. The
largest number held at any one time was more than 33,000 in August 1864. The
Confederate government could not provide adequate housing, food, clothing or
medical care to their Federal captives because of deteriorating economic
conditions in the South, a poor transportation system, and the desperate need
of the Confederate army for food and supplies.”
This means that John, being captured in May 1864, was sent
to Andersonville while it was still fairly new and died when it was near its highest
population.
Also from the Civil War Trust:
“When
General William T. Sherman’s Union forces occupied Atlanta, Georgia on
September 2, 1864, bringing Federal cavalry columns within easy striking
distance of Andersonville, Confederate authorities moved most of the prisoners
to other camps in South Carolina and coastal Georgia. From then until April
1865, Andersonville was operated in a smaller capacity.”
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| A sketch of Andersonville Prison by John L. Ransom, author of Andersonville Diary, Escape and List of the Dead. Areas of the sketch are numbered, the labels at the bottom are transcribed below: 1. Head Quarters, 2. Rebel Camp. 3. Hospital, 4. Cook House, 5. Death House, 6. Death Line, 7. The Island, 8. Sutler's Camp, 9. Police Quarters. 10. Hospitals along the Death Line. 11. Market Street, 12. Broad Street, 13. Inside Stockade, 14. Second Line Stockade, 15. Third Line Stockade, 16. Lieut. Head Quarters, 17. Washing Place, 18. Rifle Pits, 19. Astor House Mess. This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID pga.02585 |
This time-frame of moving of the prisoners suggests that John Lewis was too ill to be moved and therefore died in Andersonville. The movement of the prisoners and the confusion that must have ensued could also explain why some records I found for John did not specifically state he died at Andersonville, but said “no discharge furnished”.
Here is a report of the conditions found at Andersonville in
August 1864, a month before John Lewis died from The Pantagraph, (Bloomington Illinois) 23 Sep 1865, Sat, Page1.
“…we respectfully submit the
following as causes of disease and mortality.
1rst. The large number of prisoners
crowded together.
2nd. The entire absence of all
vegetables as a diet, so necessary as a preventative of scurvy.
3rd. The want of barracks
to shelter prisoners from sun and rain.
4th. The inadequate
supply of food and good water.
5th. Badly cooked food.
6th. The filthy
condition of the prisoners.
7th. The morbid emanations
form the branch or ravine passing through the prison, the condition of which cannot
be better explained that by naming it a morass of human excrement and mud.”
Based
on the accounts of Andersonville conditions, it would be reasonable to assume
that John Lewis died weak, emaciated, malnourished, and sick on 23 Sep 1864. I assume he suffered, but hopefully someone, perhaps
a friend was with him at the end.
According to The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois) 26 Aug 1865, Sat Page 1 there were about 500 prisoners who were
buried of which no records were kept and so could not be identified. About 13,000 were identified and given
grave-markers.
I still have questions: Was he able to write or receive letters from his mother and family? How and when did his mother learn of his death?
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| Marker at Andersonville |
