Karen Graduated From College Of Charleston among other schools Author Karen Stokes Discusses “Civilians in Sherman’s Path” Posted by Charleston Voice These accounts of Gen. Shermans Union Army pillaging and looting under the complete authority and instructions of a Republican congress, should warm the hearts of todays pro-war Republicans which today is even more so, the Party of Lincoln. Author Karen Stokes Discusses “Civilians in Sherman’s Path” Written by Bob Dill, Publisher Wednesday, 29 August 2012 00:00 “Stories of Courage amid Civil War Destruction” Author-Karen-StokesAmericans need to be reminded of the terror and destruction that can be unleashed on innocent civilians by an invading army with leaders unrestrained by Biblical standards and soldiers desiring revenge with no compassion for the suffering of women, children and the elderly. Such was the situation when over sixty thousand troops under command of Union General William T. Sherman cut a 40 mile wide swath of total destruction across South Carolina, murdering, raping, stealing and destroying everything they could not carry with them. Confederate troops had withdrawn from the state in the face of an overwhelming enemy force, hoping to minimize damage to the state. The mayor of Columbia had surrendered the city to Gen. Sherman with a solemn promise that the city and it’s remaining women, children, and elderly would not be harmed. Sherman lied! South Carolina historian and archivist Karen Stokes has collected graphic first person accounts by civilians who experienced these atrocities through letters, diaries, memoirs and newspaper accounts, much of which is corroborated by Sherman’s own officers and soldiers. Karen Stokes discussed her recent book published by The History Press (historypress.net) earlier this year, at the August meeting of the Sixteenth Regiment, Sons of Confederate Veterans, in Greenville. Stokes noted that several publications thoroughly cover the military aspects of Sherman’s destructive activities in South Carolina, but her work deals only with the impact on the civilian population, especial women, children and the elderly as well as clergy. Stokes described her book as the story of “thousands of men and women, young and old, black and white, who felt the impact of what Gen. Sherman called ‘the hard hand of war’.” “Of all the states in the Confederacy,” Stokes wrote, “South Carolina suffered the most under the army commanded by Sherman.” From his own writings, Sherman acknowledged that he did not believe “that any and every people have a right to self-government.” He contended that the Federal government could rightfully take the property, and even the life, of anyone who did not submit to its authority. From the record of their behavior, it is clear that many of the Union troops under his command shared the same attitude toward the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States as their misguided General. Author Karen Stokes includes in her book reports of two raids on upstate towns after the war officially ended and Gen. Lee surrendered to Grant. Caroline Howard Gilman, wife of Rev. Samuel Gilman, was born in Boston, moved to Charleston and then to Greenville when President Lincoln ordered the shelling of Charleston. In early May, 1865, after Gen. Lee’s surrender, Mrs. Gilman writes in a letter that she and her children were seated at the dinner table in Greenville rejoicing that the war was over and their friends were no longer in mortal combat. “What was our horror then to hear a cry from the servants, ‘The Yankees are coming!’ “Presently, a negro man in a cart, whipping his horse to a full gallop came tearing along to escape, but in vain, a dozen of the enemy’s cavalry came after him and fired…” Union troops had reentered the state looking for President Jefferson Davis. “Clusters of horsemen passed, and looked, and rode on without a question while in other houses they were searching for arms and horses. One man came on foot, while I was leaning over the porch rails, and demanded coffee. I said, I had been without coffee two months. ‘ I hear you have coffee,’ said he, ‘and if I find it is so, I’ll be damned if I don’t burn your house down.’ “The raiders, about two hundred in number went to Main Street and opened the Commissary stores, robbed the bank, pillaged every article of clothing from the rooms of the Ladies’ Association, and then proceeded to private houses and property.” Stokes also includes in her book the story of Reverend James Petigru Boyce, who served as chaplain in the Confederate Army and after the war founded the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Greenville that later moved to Louisville, Kentucky. Rev. Boyce was a victim of the Yankee raid on Greenville after the war had ended. The Yankees had been informed that Mrs. Boyce had a lot of jewelry including diamonds. “After seizing the horses, they proceeded to plunder the entire house, bursting open closets and wardrobes and trunks, and flinging everything about, in the search for valuable things. Then they held a pistol to Dr. Boyce’s head, and demanded to know what had become of his wife’s diamonds and other jewelry.” The valuables had been taken away by Boyce’s brother but he refused to say where they were if he knew. The angry Yankees eventually departed taking many things with them. -------------------------------------------- The Times Examiner will publish a more complete review of South Carolina Civilians in Sherman’s Path at a later date. In the meantime, you may purchase a copy at the Confederate Bookstore on Boyce Avenue in the Petigru Historic District of Greenville, or order a copy from the History Press.########################################################################################################### ################################################################################################Because of the 1989 movie Glory, many Americans know of the battle on Morris Island in 1863 in which the black soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment fought. Very few people, however, are aware of their participation in another wartime event on this barren, sandy piece of land in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, after Federal forces gained control of the island. In August 1864, six hundred Confederate prisoners of war were taken out of a prison camp in Delaware and transported by ship to South Carolina. The destination for most of these men was a stockade enclosure of logs situated in front of batteries Wagner and Gregg on Morris Island. The prisoners had been sent down at the request of General John G. Foster, the Federal commander in charge of the U.S. military department in the area, for the purpose of retaliation. General Samuel Jones, the Confederate commander at Charleston, had been ordered to temporarily accept and incarcerate a large number of U.S. prisoners of war at several locations in the city. General Foster was aware that these prisoners had been brought to Charleston only out of necessity, but because some were quartered in residential parts of the city exposed to the continued Federal shelling coming from Morris Island. Foster decided to retaliate by placing a large number of Confederate prisoners directly in harm’s way. Beginning in the first week of September 1864, soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment served as guards and wardens at the island stockade prison. During this time, after completing a tortuous journey in the sweltering hold of a paddlewheel steamboat, the captive Confederate officers disembarked at Morris Island. One of the prisoners, Captain Henry C. Dickinson, recorded their arrival in his diary: We were met at the wharf by a full regiment of the Sons of Africa, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, under command of Colonel Hallowell, son of an abolition silk merchant in Philadelphia…We soon started up the eastern beach of Morris Island, guarded as closely by these negroes as if we were in Confederate lines. The gait was so rapid and we so weak that many of us utterly broke down about one and a one-half miles from the wharf, when we halted to rest, and, as it just commenced raining hard, we eagerly caught water in our hats to drink, having had none for twenty-four hours. The negroes, perceiving this, went to a spring hard by and brought us some very good water. In a memoir, prisoner Lieutenant Henry H. Cook added these details: In charge of this regiment, we marched into our prison pen, situated midway between Forts Wagner and Gregg. Our prison home was a stockade made of palmetto logs driven into the sand, and was about one hundred and thirty yards square. In this were small tents and ten feet from the wall of the pen was stretched a rope, known as the “dead-line.” Outside of the pen, and near the top of the wall, was a walk for the sentinels, so situated as to enable them to overlook the prisoners. About three miles distant, and in full view, was Charleston, into which the enemy was pouring heavy shells during the night while we remained on the island. [Fort] Sumter lay a shapeless mass about twelve hundred yards to the west of us, and from it our sharpshooters kept up a constant fire upon the artillerymen in Fort Gregg. Off to the right lay Sullivan’s Island, and we could see the Confederate flag floating over [Fort] Moultrie. In his detailed diary, Captain Dickinson recounted the artillery duels that went on between the Union fortifications on Morris Island and the surrounding Confederate forts and batteries, describing one early engagement thus: Moultrie fired splendidly, only two or three shots falling too short; the great majority fell into Wagner. Most of our shells were from mortars and looked as if they would fall directly on us, but, whilst we held our breath in anxious expectation, its parabolic course would land it in the fort. Every good shot was applauded by us as loudly as we dared. We were but 250 yards from the spot at which these monster shells were directed, and too little powder or a slight elevation of the mortar might have killed many of us since we were so crowded together. But it was a trial of Southern against Northern gunnery…Two shells exploded over us throwing great and small pieces all about our camp. After these two last shots Moultrie fired no more at Wagner, and this was the first evidence that the Confederates knew our position between the forts… The prisoners believed that the Confederate gunners knew the location of the stockade and directed their fire accordingly. Although some shells came close or burst overhead, affording the prisoners some hair-raising moments, none fell directly into the prison camp. The stockade prison guards were sometimes trigger-happy, firing into the camp for what one prisoner described as trivial offenses, and wounding several men, but in general the Confederates got along well with the black sergeants who served as their wardens. Prisoner Captain George W. Nelson recalled these men, and their white commander, Colonel Edward N. Hallowell: Our camp was laid off in streets, two rows of tents facing each other, making a street…A negro sergeant had charge of each row, calling it “his company.” These sergeants were generally kind to us, expressed their sorrow that we had so little to eat. We had a point in common with them, viz: intense hatred of their Colonel. Their hatred of him was equaled only by their fear of him. His treatment of them, for the least violation of orders, was barbarous. He would ride at them, knock and beat them over the head with his sabre, or draw his pistol and shoot at them. The Confederate officers remained on Morris Island until the latter part of October 1864. For much of their sojourn on the island, food rations were inadequate, and many men suffered with dysentery and other complaints. Three of them died and were buried there. When the prisoners learned that they would be leaving Morris Island, they were overjoyed, but they would soon discover that they were exchanging a bad situation for one much worse. Lt. Henry H. Cook recalled their departure: On October 26 we were informed that we were to be taken to Fort Pulaski, at the mouth of the Savannah River. We were in the hands of Foster, and no mercy was expected or hoped for. We staggered or were hauled to the wharf and were placed upon the little schooners to be towed to Fort Pulaski. The horrors of Morris Island were not to be compared with what awaited us on the coast of Georgia… At Union-held Fort Pulaski near Savannah, these Confederate prisoners of war would undergo an extraordinary retaliatory regime of severe rationing and other deprivations that began in late December 1864. General John G. Foster issued orders that the Fort Pulaski prisoners, and some who had been removed to Hilton Head Island, were to be put on retaliatory rations. Their rations were reduced to ten ounces of corn meal a day per man, along with a supply of onion pickles. The corn meal issued to the prisoners was several years old, rancid, and infested with insects. On January 19, Captain Henry Dickinson recorded in his diary that the rations also included a few ounces of bread. According to Colonel Abram Fulkerson, the acidic pickles were mostly rejected when it was discovered that they did more harm than good. Many men quickly grew ill in the damp, freezing casemates of Fort Pulaski, suffering from bronchitis, dysentery, pneumonia, and scurvy, a disease of malnutrition. Seeing so much suffering around them, some compassionate Confederate officers formed a relief association, the stronger, healthier men helping those who were weaker and sick. The suffering of the prisoners worsened, and within a month after the reduction in rations, prisoner Henry E. Handerson wrote that the sick list assumed “alarming proportions.” Another prisoner, John Ogden Murray, described the effects of the starvation diet imposed on the prisoners, writing: Hunger drove our men to catching and eating dogs, cats, and rats…On the first day of January, 1865, the scurvy became prevalent in our prison. The doctor, whose name I cannot remember, did the best he could for us with the medicine General Foster’s order allowed him to use in practice amongst the prisoners. He would often say, “Men, the medicines allowed me are not the proper remedies for scurvy, but I can get no other for you.” Under the policy of retaliation, the prison doctor was not allowed to give the prisoners any medicine except painkillers, principally opiates. Some Federal medical officers who made an inspection at Pulaski in January 1865 were shocked by the condition of the prisoners. According to Henry H. Cook, “One stated that in all his experience he had never seen a place so horrible or known of men being treated with such brutality.” In the middle of February 1865, the retaliation regime finally ended, and the Fort Pulaski prisoners began receiving much better rations. In March 1865, they were sent back to Fort Delaware, and when they arrived, many were unrecognizable to the men who had known them prior to their departure in August 1864. Lieutenant Elijah L. Cox, a Confederate prisoner who had envied the six hundred men he saw leaving Fort Delaware in 1864, was horrified at their condition, and estimated that about sixty of the officers were taken directly to the hospital upon arrival. Another Fort Delaware prisoner, Robert E. Park, described the Pulaski prisoners in his diary as “lean, emaciated persons…covered with livid spots of various sizes, occasioned by effusion of blood under the cuticle.” Despite all the terrible hardships these six hundred Confederate officers endured, most refused to take the oath of allegiance to the United States before the war ended, an act which would have lessened their sufferings and deprivations, and afforded them a better chance of survival. For this devotion to their cause, and to each other, they became known as “The Immortal 600.” Share on Facebook Tweet it Share on Google+ Share on LinkedIn Pin it Share on Reddit Share on StumbleUpon Email this Karen Stokes War Crimes War for Southern Independence About Karen Stokes Karen Stokes is an archivist and writer in Charleston, S.C. She is the co-editor of Faith, Valor and Devotion: The Civil War Letters of William Porcher Dubose (USC Press, 2010), and A Confederate Englishman: The Civil War Letters of Henry Wemyss Feilden (USC Press, 2013). She is also the author of South Carolina Civilians in Shermans Path (History Press, 2012), and The Immortal 600: Surviving Civil War Charleston and Savannah (History Press, 2013). Belles: A Carolina Love Story (Ring of Fire, 2012), was her first venture into historical fiction, and her newest historical novel is The Soldiers Ghost: A Tale of Charleston (Ring of Fire, 2014). More from Karen Stokes
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 03:41:57 +0000