BS: Confederate Dead

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Feb 10 - 12:15 PM

RE: John Wesley Campbell

Search of several databases doesn't turn up a John Wesley, but there is a John W. Campbell who enlisted in the 12th PA Reserve Infantry (41st PA Vols) on 24 July 1861 & died 22/8/1861 at Tennallytown, Maryland.

Other John W. Campbells from PA include those in : 2nd Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry (3 months, 1861),6th Regiment, Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery (212th Volunteers), 12th Regiment, Pennsylvania Cavalry (113th Volunteers), 56th Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry, 93rd Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry, 133rd Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry, 142nd Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry, 158th Regiment, Pennsylvania Infantry (Drafted Militia).

Pennsylvanis State Archives might be able to help.

Searchable database of some burials (work in progress) is available here:

http://www.suvcwdb.org/home/search.php?action=search

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 07:19 PM

Ah, that's too bad. Thanks for answering so quickly.

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: olddude
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 07:16 PM

I actually didn't Kat

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Feb 10 - 06:58 PM

olddude, did you ever have any luck?

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 09:42 PM

Hey olddude...I believe that Cherry Creek is in South Carolina. As is Beaufort and Folly Island. My guess would be that is just where he happened to be stationed at the time. I'd be more inclined to look for relatives in New York. Unless he met a really special nurse in that Beaufort, SC hospital :)

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: olddude
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 06:59 PM

Big Daddy
cherry creek is about 10 miles from me ... great information ..
wow thank you. I will see if he has relatives there

wow

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: maire-aine
Date: 24 Mar 09 - 11:56 AM

Hey, Big Daddy. My great-grandmother was Martha Ann Campbell, and she lived in Buffington Twp, Indiana County, Pennsylvania. Her parents were Andrew Campbell and Phebe (nee Carney) Campbell. Her brother, John Wesley Campbell, served in (I think) 12th Pa. Infantry. I think they lived their whole lives in Pa. Andrew's parents were William Campbell and Martha (nee McCormick) Campbell.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:21 PM

There are seventy postings which have "Charles" in them at the GenForum Mount Forum. You could post there about the bible and maybe someone would see it. Though I posted info about a Civil War IOU which my great-grandfather had from someone named "Poteet" and never got a reply. Still GenForum is a good, free spot to post queries, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 09:50 PM

Hey olddude, Corporal Charles W. Mount, 112th N. Y. volunteers "Cherry Creek, sick at Folly Island, sent to hospital, Beaufort, S.C., October 1, '63; transferred V.R.C. May 31, '64." Found this at www.longislandgenealogy.com Next step would probably be checking the census for his home county, if you know it, for 1870, 1880, etc. I also found there is an 1870 census entry for Charles W. Mount, in Cattaraugus, N. Y., born about 1845. Might be a place to start. There are also a couple of Charles W. Mounts currently living in the state of New York. Might be worth trying them.

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: GUEST,guest_olddude
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 08:01 PM

Big Daddy
I have a civil war pocket bible from Cpl. Charles Mount NY 112th
incredible, you can see the wax from the candles on the pages and on the blank pages he writes about how he may not live through the battle the next day and will be at peace when he dies. It just brings it all to life. This is something he had right then and there, with him in all the battles ... Amazing and moving to look at the pencil marks and the writing ... I did some research, he survived the war. I wish I could find his family. I would give the bible to them

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 06:00 PM

One thing I know is that it is important to be allowed to mourn your dead, and if you aren't allowed, terrible things happen to families and to the country. That includes people on the "wrong side" of things. That includes Confederate families, German families, etc. You must not be deprived of your basic right to speak of them without being shut down, with that "they shouldn't have been involved in that war, it was an evil war, the only good German is a dead German, they deserved what they got" etc...it festers..it lasts for centuries...we still deprive Southern families of that basic right. We still deprive Germans of that basic right....mg

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 05:32 PM

A Cherokee gentleman by the name of Yanusdi Cox says, "Your ancestors want to be remembered." I like that statement. That's one reason it's good to speak aloud the names of your ancestors from time to time, in remembrance. At the very least it puts a good "vibe" out there. Beyond that, who knows?

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 04:01 PM

A great grandfather of mine, a Union captain, kept the daily report and muster rolls of his unit when he left the army, rather late after the war had been over for some months. The reason was that widows and relatives couldn't get proper information from Washington, nor could they get money that they were entitled to. Men died of disease in the service and were forgotten, or central records were muddled and records of service could not be found.
With the records, he was able to help with claims to the government from those who had had men in his unit.
Many records of service were lost or misplaced or destroyed in the field. Central records were in a muddle after the war, and much never did get collected and organized; men like him and veterans groups were important to those making claims or seeking information.

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 03:55 PM

Amen, olddude.

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: olddude
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 03:47 PM

Thank you for setting me straight ... I could not agree more. We look at numbers and that is all we see. But each number is a real person that had terrible suffering. We need to learn from the past or we just repeat it again and again

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 03:29 PM

Dan, the History Channel show you refer to is the DVD I mentioned earlier called "80 Acres of Hell." At Andersonville, 12,913 prisoners died there (including my great-great grandfather) from a variety of horrible conditions. That prison held around 45,000 prisoners (Union Soldiers) during its time of operation. Camp Douglas held around 12,000 Confederat prisoners, of which about 6000 died there (including my great-great uncle) from similar conditions. The rest of the prison camps, north and south were far from exemplary. Overall, during the American Civil War, approximately 24,000 Confederate soldiers died in prison camps in the north. Approximately 23,000 Union soldiers died in prison camps in the south. And that's around 47,000 deaths just in the prison camps. Overall, over 600,000 from both sides died war-related deaths, which, as most already know, is more than the sum of all our nation's other fatalities from all the wars this country has fought, from the American Revolution to the present. The statistics can be a double-edged sword...it's worth knowing and meditating upon to understand where we've been, how we got there, and what frightening destruction we are capable of, even without today's weaponry and technology. The down side of such numbers is that sometimes the mind simply fails to comprehend the personal loss and anguish because the numbers are so great. The same is true of the holocaust, or the other 20th century genocides. I guess that's one reason I find individual stories so compelling, because it puts a more recognizable construct on the suffering.

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: GUEST,guest_olddude
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 10:13 AM

The history channel did a full story on that prison a year or so ago. It was absolutely terrible. Everyone knows about Anderson ville but few really knew of the horrible conditions of the Chicago prison in the North. If you can find it one the web, it is well worth watching

Dan

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 23 Mar 09 - 07:30 AM

Maryanne, what was your great-grandmother's name and where was she born? Do you know her parents' names? I've come across a John Wesley Campbell born in Virginia in 1839 who had several sisters. It's a long shot but possible. Also if you get curious enough to contact the National Archives in DC you may be able to get more info than you'd think. I started tracing one Civil War era great-great grandfather when I was in my teens and ended up with copies of his pay stubs from his time in the service, his enlistment papers and much more.

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: maire-aine
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 08:51 PM

Only one relative, that I know of, was in the Civil War-- my great-grandmother's brother, John Wesley Campbell of Indiana County, Pennsylvania died during the war, but I don't know at what location.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 08:43 PM

My g-g-g uncle, a well digger, fought at Shiloh, Atlanta, made the March To The Sea, and in various other engagements. I never knew him, but I did know his daughter. She said he would never, ever, talk about it. He was buried in his "faded coat of blue" and his gravesite would have been lost had not my brother done the paperwork and gotten him a headstone from the VA. All of the other graves in his part of the old cemetery are now unmarked, although cemetery records show who should be buried where.

The Camp Butler cemetery in Illinois, outside Springfield, is quite a sight and it is very possible that those who were buried there -- Union and Reb -- now reside together in an old coal mine that runs under the cemetery.

All veteran's cemeteries, no matter where they are, are special places. There's no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now....

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: SINSULL
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 08:28 PM

Yes, Liz. And in every war, a mother will lose he son - a good reason not to start any war.

Big Daddy - fascinating stuff. My family arrived in the States long after the Civil War ended. Our veterans served in WWI and WWII.

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 08:01 PM

Tis often the case with civil wars, that you have relatives on both sides so it's better to not start them.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 07:48 PM

I knew of the camp; it was also used as a staging site for troops from the Civil War through WW1. Like the camp on the island in Lake Erie and ALL of the Civil War POW camps it wasn't exactly up to even Gitmo or Abu Ghraib standards.

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 07:10 PM

Thanks for the offer and the interesting info. The ones I know of survived, one Reb and one Union, though they both had brothers and other relatives, I know not who, but it is unlikely they were near Chicago. I didn't know about that camp, so thanks, again, for the info.

I did have a kind of neat thing happen one time while searching up ancestors on google. I came across a full Union uniform being sold at auction. It was in very good shape as it had been issued after my ancestor-in-law was let out of a Rebel prisoner camp. The man to whom it belonged was married to my maternal grandma's sister and they settled in Idaho. I have no idea how or why his uniform wound up being auctioned off, but it was neat to see the photos of it and I was able to add to the provenance they had.

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: robomatic
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 07:01 PM

I take this piece of history as common to all Americans, Northern, Southern, freedmen and slaves, it's the defining event since Independence that made us what we are in the US, we all went through that ringer together and all the dead are 'our' dead.

Subject: RE: BS: Confederate Dead
From: Amos
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 04:48 PM

And, sad to say, none of them are likely to be Reconstructed!! ;>0

Thanks for the kind offer, BigDaddy!



A

Subject: BS: Confederate Dead
From: GUEST,BigDaddy
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 04:16 PM

For any of you genealogy/history buffs out there, I just thought I'd offer this: To make a long story bearable, I'll try to keep it simple. While tracking down an ancestor a few years ago, I found that he had served briefly in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He was captured and taken to a Federal prison camp in Chicago, IL called Camp Douglas. He soon died there, at the age of 19, as did about six thousand others. Anyway, there is a monument at Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago where most of the camp's dead were reinterred. On the monument is a list of over 4000 names of Confederate soldiers who are buried there. There is a list of these dead called "Chicago Civil War Encyclopedia Confederate Mound Index." I have a copy (not easily available) and if anyone else out there believes they may have an ancestor there, I'd be glad to check the list for their name. Each entry includes name, regiment (including state) and date of death if known. I don't do genealogical research for hire or anything like that, and the offer is just for those who have reason to believe that they have an ancestor interred there, and haven't visited the site to read the names on the monument. The prison camp is discussed in a very thorough book called "To Die In Chicago: Confederate Prisoners at Camp Douglas 1862-65" by George Levy. Also a DVD entitled "Eighty Acres of Hell" is available from the History Channel. And to those of you with Confederate Phobia, I had two ancestors in the Confederate Army and two in the Union Army. My other Confederate ancestor returned from the war and became a businessman. One of my Union ancestors died in Andersonville Prison in Georgia, and the other returned to his native southern Illinois to resume farming. Some kind of symmetry there.