Sunday, January 5, 2014

I Can Never Go Home and Leave These Boys to Die Here



34 Months of Civil War Service:  The Life of Merritt M. Clark

     Another Civil War notable buried in Galesburg’s historic Hope Cemetery is Merritt M. Clark, a young man who reached the rank of Lieutenant before he was mustered out of the service.

     Like so many others of his age, young Clark was not native to the Midwest.  He was born in Vermont in 1835.  In 1846 his father died.  Five years later, Merritt and his mother came west to Galesburg, and the young man soon enrolled in Knox College, graduating with high honors in 1857.  Merritt Clark left Knox with more than a diploma.  While there he met Celia Tinker, a student at the Knox Academy.  She attended what would be considered to be “high school” there from 1851 through 1857, and upon her graduation the couple was married by her father, the Reverend Charles E. Tinker.

     Merritt Clark decided to study law after his graduation, and signed on to work with the local firm of Arthur A. Smith and George W. Ford, former Knox graduates who were no doubt happy to be able to offer two fellow alumni a helping hand.  The gentleman who studied with young Clark was Edward P. Williams.  In September of 1860 both Clark and Williams were admitted to the Illinois Bar.  That November they opened their own law office, and in January of 1861 Arthur A. Smith left Ford’s office to enter practice with the two young men at 27 Main.

     When war broke out Clark was at first reluctant to enlist.  He had been married to Celia for four years and had two young daughters besides a wife to take care of.  His law practice was struggling to become established, a rather hard struggle with 30 lawyers in the city competing for the legal business.  The casualty lists were coming back.  The debacle at Bull Run, a small stream in Northern Virginia was bad enough, but Shiloh was horrific and stunned much of the North into realizing what a long and bloody struggle the Civil War would become. 

     Merritt M. Clark finally made the fateful decision to enlist for 3 years.  He became part of Company A of the 77th Illinois Infantry. He was 27 years old, 5’9” tall, with piercing blue eyes and sandy colored hair.   When the company finally mustered in September, there were 25 men from Galesburg and 32 from Knoxville in it.  Fifteen of the men had either attended Knox College or Knox Academy. 

     Merritt Clark’s law partner, Edward Williams, in a talk in 1909 to the Knox County Historical Society, explained that another man was listed for primary promotion, but he declined in Merritt Clark’s favor, reasoning that Clark, being a family man, could better use the promotion and the extra pay that came with it to support the family that he’d left behind.  The regiment left for Peoria in September, and immediately Merritt Clark established himself as a faithful and diligent correspondent via his letters to both his wife and his niece Lucy.  Cognizant of the importance of the conflict that was taking place and of the historical relevance that his letters might someday have, he advised his young niece that “If you keep my letters you will have a very good diary of my soldier life.” 

     Lieutenant Clark never was wounded by enemy conflict, but like so many soldiers in the war, he eventually fell victim to diseases as deadly as any minie ball.  Soon after his arrival at the front, he came down with typhoid fever.  Either while he was recovering in the hospital from the fever, or while returning to his regiment near Vicksburg, he came down with tuberculosis or what was commonly known during that time as “consumption,” a disease that would slowly waste away one’s lungs.  Unlike an enlisted man, an officer was considered a “gentleman” and had the right to submit his resignation if he could provide a valid reason, which his health issues certainly, would have provided him.  He couldn’t bring himself to do it though.  He felt a personal responsibility to stay with the young men that he had helped to recruit.

     By December of 1862 he was already complaining of ill health, probably the onset of the typhoid fever.  In a 6 page letter to his niece he wrote of his health and expressed some political opinions that the reader might find interesting.  “I have been here 3 weeks.  Yesterday I went downstairs to dinner for the first time.  I needed considerable help to get up the stairs again……

     I am very anxious to get back with the boys again.  Is everybody as bitter in Rockford against McClellan as you?  It surprises me if your views prevail there.  I am not prepared to say that he was an out and out traitor in communication with Jefferson Davis, still I do and I have always thought that his Democratic principles induced a very different war policy than that the Republicans wished carried out.  He is like nearly all the Demo rats.  They for years have been always ready to talk about concessions and compromises when any of the South was likely to suffer.”

     By April of 1863 he was in Louisiana, getting ready to embark for Mississippi and what would become a long and frustrating campaign to wrest Vicksburg from the Confederates.  His letter to his niece addressed how he had adapted to the discomforts of a soldier’s life…..


     “We are not burdened with much baggage now, only one tent, one kettle and one Miss. Ham to the Company.  We expected to leave here for a town on the Mississippi very soon called Grand Gulf which is occupied and strongly fortified by the Rebs…..Grand Gulf is about 50 miles below Vicksburg……Six of Company A have been discharged.  Six have died…..We have had plenty to eat, some hard work, and a great deal of fun.  We are down in the land of palm leaf fans, figs, magnolias, cotton, alligators, big snakes, etc.  I have seen several alligators dead and alive, have had the pleasure of shooting at them and swimming in the bayous where the varmints reside.  You may think that we are surrounded by great dangers seen and unseen which I suppose is true, but we are perfectly indifferent about it.  Such is the soldiers adaptation to circumstances.  I would not at one time have thought it possible to have endured such a life, but I get along with it very well.”

     In a letter to his niece at the end of May, 1863, Merritt Clark wrote vividly of the Vicksburg Campaign: “We are now about ¾ of a mile from the enemy’s works, which I assure you are formidable.  Our division was in advance and as soon as we came in sight of the fort skirmishers were thrown out from the Regt. To drive in the Rebel skirmishers – the bullets whistled about us lively for a while but only one of our boys was wounded & he slightly.  We were not long in making the Rebs hunt their holes.  The fortifications in the rear of Vicksburg are in the shape of the letter V, enclosing the city and about 12 miles in length.  The first day we gained the brink of the hill nearest the hill on our front & commenced picking off cannoneers –of few of our men (that is of the Regt.) were killed and a number wounded.  For two days after that we were thus occupied.  On Friday the 22nda charge was ordered along the whole line which extended the whole length of the Rebel works.  It was made & a fearful charge it was &did not avail us but little.  On the night Sherman got possession of two forts we were obliged to fall back to the ravine& now I think the intention is to besiege the place and shell and starve them out.  The cannonading is terrific some of the time –the Rebs do not reply.  We have made gradual advances by digging rifle pits nights until our sharpshooters are quite near the forts……..

     As we approached, the order was given to fix bayonets and charge – it was done gallantly by three of four regiments who were in advance (ours not included), the Rebs were most thoroughly panic stricken – we took about 4000 prisoners, 17 pieces of artillery; one whole regiment was captured with their guns loaded – a part of them escaped and burned the bridge, but another was soon constructed & we pushed out and now have them surrounded & it doesn’t seem possible that they can hold out much longer.  We took over the march from the river to this place 69 pieces of artillery and about 10,000 prisoners.  You see, we crossed the Mississippi below Grand Gulf and came around by the way of Jackson.  We have possession of Haines Bluff.  I have no idea how long the Rebs will hold out, they have provisions enough to last a long time – shot and shells are flying all directions in the city…..

     When in the end of all this, we may get possession of Vicksburg, will this end the war?  I think not.  The great work which I believe God intends {we} shall accomplish will not have been done.  Slavery must be wiped out and the foundation of a higher and purer Civil and Religious liberty must be firmly established.

     Clark’s law partner, E. P. Williams, recounted the situation.  “Knowing that his health was badly broken, and fearing lest he would die from disease while in the army, I besought him to come home, frankly saying to him, ‘you being a commissioned officer, can resign, and I believe that it is your duty to do so.  I have saved the business Judge Smith and you left in my care.  There is enough to support one man.  I am willing to take up something else for a time, will gladly do so if you will only resign and come home.’

     Clark replied: ‘Mr. Williams, you told the boys that I would stand by them in their emergency; in darkness as well as in light; in adversity as well as in prosperity, and for three long months I have been trying to get the discharge of Willie Churchill, Cornelius Hensey and {----}, who are in even sadder physical condition than I am.  They have no commission and cannot resign.  I can never go home and leave these boys to die here.’  The former died in Louisiana in February of 1863, and the latter was discharged for disability in April of that year.

     Another letter to his niece dated July 14th talks of the surrender of Vicksburg:  “Long in the receipt of this you will have had the full particulars of the surrender & of the extent of our victory.  The Rebellion has received a severe blow from which it can never fully recover.  50,000 prisoners, 250 pieces of artillery - an immense amount of ammunition and 60,000 stand of arms cannot well be spared, much less the position we have gained.  We are getting good news from every quarter.  Port Hudson they say is ours.  General Prentiss gave Price a good thrashing at Helena – General Meade is annihilating Meade’s army and Rosecrans is pressing Bragg’s hand.  We have Johnston with 25,000 men surrounded at Jackson – there must be no escape for him.  It looks as though the rebellion is about played out.  Copperheads must look sorry.  What a mean cowardly lot they are.  Uncle Sam pays us for killing a much better and nobler class of men.  On the morning of the 3rd of July I went out on picket in charge of the men.  Just as we were starting out two Rebel Generals Gen. Bowen and Montgomery were escorted to our Division Headquarters blindfolded.  They came into our lines under a flag of truce.  We all thought a surrender was close by.  The Rebs knew they would get an awful working up on the 4th if they did not come to terms.  The surrender was completed at 9 o’clock am on the 4th, and in less than three hours our Army Corps had marching orders.  This seemed hard.  We had been fighting and working for 45 days to get Vicksburg – under fire all the time, and as the boys said it was very dangerous to be safe & then not have a chance to see Vicksburg or to examine the enemy works.

     After the Vicksburg Campaign the 77th Illinois with Lieutenant Clark was sent to Alabama to participate in the capture of Mobile and the forts guarding that important Gulf Coast seaport.  While at Mobile Bay he and his men suffered a good deal from the heat, the deep white sand that would get burning hot and seemed to permeate everything, the want of sufficient food, and the hordes of mosquitoes that seemed to give evidence of Rebel sympathies by doing their best to make life unbearable.  When the regiment returned to Louisiana in September of 1864, Lieutenant Clark remarked upon how nice it was to be able to pitch a tent on the green sod again.

     In October of 1864 he wrote to his niece telling of the misfortune of his good friend Robert Avery, Lieutenant George C. Kenyon and a party of men from the 77th who were captured and taken first to Mobile to and then to the notorious Andersonville prison camp.  He also remarked that Colonel Grier was home again attempting to recruit men to replace the vacancies in the regiment caused by the Vicksburg and Mobile campaigns. 

     Ill health continued to plague him.  In November of 1864 he was relieved of duty with his Company and assigned to Provost Marshall duty in New Orleans.  He coughed a great deal all winter, coughing spells that occasionally led him to spit up a little blood.  Despite his health problems he remained on duty as a Provost Marshall until February 20th, 1865, at which time he rejoined his regiment in Mobile.  He remained with them until he was discharged from the service.

     Upon returning to Galesburg he resumed the practice of law and was also elected Police Magistrate His cough worsened, and gave him a great deal of concern during the winters of 1865 and 1866.  Dr. Alfred Babcock, his physician, examined him and found the lower portions of both lungs to be hepatized or consolidated.  Clark was fortunate in that his partner, E. P. Williams took charge of the cases that would require the most research and labor, leaving Clark the lighter caseload that would be less apt to task his health.  By 1868 his had three or four abscesses in his lungs that caused him a great deal of suffering when he coughed.  By this time the consumption had ravaged his lungs to the point where he suffered shortness of breath, violent coughing spells during any attempts at physical labor, and sleepless nights after any severe mental labor.  In 1871 he was elected to the post of City Attorney, but gave up the office within a year because of his ill health and dissolved the law partnership that he had with Mr. Williams as well. 

   He travelled to Minnesota in 1868, 1870 and 71, and to Florida during the winters of 1871-72 and 1872-73.  He went to Colorado in the fall of 1873.  Despite these efforts to find a climate more amenable to his lung problems, he was gradually wasting away.  By 1878 he was confined to his house for a few weeks and to his bed because of fever and the condition of his lungs.  Despairing of ever being able to remain healthy enough to pursue his occupation, he applied for an invalid’s pension.  His Galesburg friends, including his former law partner, E. P. Williams, petitioned the Commissioner of Pensions on his behalf.  A former classmate at Knox College, James S. Delano, sent an letter along with it, asking for a “special favor” in the processing of Clark’s application.  It was finally processed on July 26th, 1881, dated to commence on July 11th, 1865, the day after his discharge.  His death finally released him from his suffering on May 23rd, 1883.  This brave man who cared so deeply about the fate of the men he was responsible for was as much a victim of the late war as any battlefield casualty.  His former friend and law partner paid hi this wonderful tribute…. “ a thorough scholar and clear-headed, able lawyer; always reliable; always unselfish; prepared to do his duty and to care for his countrymen in times of emergency, he literally gave his life for his country.”

Bibliography

Collection of Letters from Merritt M. Clark to his niece, Lucy Barton, Knox College Archives, Galesburg, Illinois.

77th Illinois Muster Roll, Illinois State Archives

Merritt C. Clark   Find a Grave Website