As with so many of the men who became
leaders in Western Illinois, Adam Clarke Higgins emigrated here in his early
years, having been born in Middlebourne, in Tyler County, West Virginia, in
1834. He entered the ministry of the
Methodist Church at 18 years of age, and at age 21 he joined the Central
Illinois Conference. After the
hostilities between the north and the south broke out, he labored to and was
instrumental in raising a number of companies in Knox County. Realizing that his strengths lay in his
religious instruction rather than military tactics or the wielding of
discipline, he resigned the Captaincy that he had been elected to and instead
accompanied the 893rd Illinois as its Chaplain. For two years he was the post Chaplain at
Clarkesville, Tennessee. In the book
that Phil Reyburn has recently transcribed and put together of letters home
from soldiers serving at the front, Chaplain Higgins sends some interesting
observations home in which he equates the rebels against their country to the
rebellion of Satan and his minions. I
can’t help feeling that it would be tough to listen to a heavy dose of rhetoric
such as this on a Sunday morning.
“I entered upon my labor as Chaplain of the
regiment deeply impressed me with the responsibility of my position, and
resolving faithfully to discharge every known duty in the fear of God. I have in every instance met a warm
reception, and have been kindly treated by both officers and privates. My time has been occupied principally in
conducting religious services, visiting the hospitals, and companies, reading
scriptures for, and conversing, and praying with the sick, writing letters for
those unable to write; answering correspondents, inquiring about sick friends,
attending the funerals of the deceased members of our regiment, and distributing
tracts, books, papers and magazines among those having the leisure and ability
to read. …with regard to the morals of the members of our regiment the standard
is not as high as it should be, but in this respect I think our regiment would
compare favorably with the same number of men taken promiscuously in any
community….
“Send us moral and religious reading
matter—tracts, books, papers, magazines, etc.
The appealing to the God of Battles for the rectitude of our cause, we
will sacrifice our lives. Upon our
country’s altar, or live to see the day when treason and rebellion shall be
swept from our land, complete victory perch upon our banner, and country enjoy
peace again upon the God-given principle of Right. And in the still greater conflict, we pledge
ourselves either to die in the contest or to vanquish the prince of rebels, the
arch-secessionist, destroy his confederacy, build up the kingdom of our Lord
and his Christ, and wave the flag of salvation over a world redeemed from the
thralldom of sin.”
In February of 1864, Chaplain Higgins
sent a letter back to the Galesburg
Free Democrat, excerpts of which the editor shared with his
readership. Among the topics discussed
in the letter are his impressions of Clarksville and the Tennessee people,
Colonel Arthur A. Smith and the health of the regiment and his personal
accomplishments.
“Clarksville is situated on the Cumberland
River, about thirty-five miles above Ft. Donelson. This was a place that formerly numbered about
6000 inhabitants… It was a place of great wealth. There was more tobacco shipped at this place
than any other point North or South. The
citizens have built many fine residences, some that might properly be
denominated mansions, and had the grounds surrounding them beautifully adorned
with statuary, tropical trees and flowers.
Having grown rich from uncompensated toil and their damnable tariffs in
flesh and blood, as might be expected, this class of society is arrogant,
imperious, domineering and overbearing.
A great portion of the masses of society are stupid ignoramuses….This
city has done much for the nefarious cause of the South. She has contributed largely of her means to
support of that arch traitor, Jeff Davis, and his plans for the overthrow of
our God-given form of government. She
has declaimed boisterously for “Southern Rights.” In part she has received her rights. The neglected filthy and ruined condition of
her public and many of her private buildings, the paralyzed condition of her
public and many of her citizens (who once rode upon the waves of luxury and
wealth) to dependence and want, with many other signs, bear unmistakable
evidence that much of her former glory has departed. In this place of six thousand inhabitants,
there were but three or four citizens who stood by the honor of our government,
or had a word to say for the Union in its hour of trial. Such a hotbed of treason- I wonder that the city
has not been burned or bombarded long before this time. But perhaps it is best that such has not been
done, but ‘I can’t see it’.”
“Col. A. A. Smith of Galesburg is in
command here. Our excellent Colonel has
won an enviable fame among the officers and soldiers of the 83rd
(also other officers and soldiers with whom we have been associated since
entering the service) for his good sense, good morals, and of all the elements
that are involved in the constitution of a gentleman, a patriot, a faithful
officer and a hero. I have found in him
a true friend and a safe counselor.”
Chaplain Higgins wrote in the same
letter of the deaths that had occurred in the regiment up to that point (82),
and noted that roughly the same number of men had been discharged. Judging from the task list that he recounts
to the editor in the following segment from his letter, Chaplain Higgins
evidently was diligent about keeping a very accurate accounting of his
accomplishments.
“I have recently administered the ordinance
of baptism to 18 persons. During the
year 1863, I preached one hundred and three discourses, attended ninety seven
funerals, wrote five hundred and seventy three letters (many of them for the
sick and to the friends of the sick) and tried to be faithful in my attention
to the sick and well, in exhorting, conducting prayer meetings, domestic
worship, etc.”
On March 24th,
1864, in another letter to the Galesburg
Free Democrat, he talks of the Election Day in Tennessee.
“…from what I have learned there was a
much larger vote pulled throughout West Tennessee than I expected. There were but few of the citizens of this
place that voted; most of them refused to take either President Lincoln’s oath
of office or the oath prescribed by Governor Johnson… I think a place could not
be found in all secessia where the people are more unanimously opposed to the
federal government than are the despicable inhabitants of this treacherous
place. Civil law will be re-established,
and sustained by the military, and unless these guilty rebels are speedily
found at Lincoln’s altar, repenting of this most damnable of all sins, treason,
I trust that they will be made to feel that traitors cannot persist in their
opposition to the federal [--rm] with perfect impunity.”
Chaplain Higgins wrote a letter to the
Knox Republican in August of
1864. It was a chatty letter, but dealt
with more military matters than were usually evident in his letters, including
an ambush by Confederate bushwhackers that was more like cold-blooded murder. The Morrison that he lists as missing, later
returned to camp after escaping during the ambush. His grandson changed his name from Marion
Morrison to a more masculine sounding “John Wayne” when he went to
Hollywood. Yes, “The Duke.”
“Arose on Tuesday, 16th, and
accompanied by Lieut. Russell and Capt. Temple rode to the steamboat landing,
learned that a little steamboat left for Donelson at 8 o’clock. After breakfast visited the contraband camp,
and the quarters of Capt. Temple’s company.
Met with Capt. Brunt, who has charge of the contraband camp. Spent our time looking at the improvements,
were highly delighted while inspecting one of the finest gardens in all the
country. A large, fine watermelon was
plucked, cut and eaten, after which we hastened to the river, arriving just in
time for the Lieut. To get aboard the boat bound for Donelson.”
“A report reached headquarters on Thursday
the 16th, that three hundred rebel soldiers were crossing, or had
crossed the Cumberland at Palmyra between this and Donelson. Some of the boys met with them, and shots were
exchanged. There are undoubtedly many
rebel soldiers, guerillas and blood-guilty citizens in the country. If the authorities expect us to do anything
more than to garrison the post then they ought to furnish more men. The number of mounted men here to scout,
repair telegraph lines, and keep up courier lines, etc. etc., is shamefully and
ruinously insufficient.”
“Mounted infantry came in during Friday
night. They had been to Garnetsburg, and
learned from a reliable source that the rebel guerilla Woodward had left in
command of three hundred men, not an hour before our boys arrived. A dispatch was received in Hopkinsville that
Woodward had moved onto that place and made an attack early in the
morning. Woodward and several of his men
were killed, and the rebel forces were completely routed.”
“Dr. Cooper unwell. Hope he will be better soon. His labors have been very abundant. A dispatch from Col. Brott today informs us
that Captain Turnbull of Company B and seven of his men were murdered while out
repairing telegraph lines. Names of the
men killed are: Capt. William Turnbull, Corporal Mitchell Thompson, W.W.
Findly, Samuel A Foster, James Patterson, William Martin, John Hogue, and David
Nichols. Missing James Neely and M.
Morrison.”
In a September
letter to the Knox Republican
Chaplin Higgins talks some of the murders of the telegraph repair party, but
spends more ink, seemingly with some delight, in celebrating the death of the
guerrilla leader Woodward. Excerpts from
this letter follow…
“In my last letter I gave you the names of
the members of Company B., who were so cruelly murdered and barbarously
mutilated by hellish guerilla fiends in human form, between Donelson and
Smithland. Ere this reaches you, you
will no doubt have received a detailed report of the circumstances connected
with the death of our ill-fated boys. In
their death we mourn high-minded gentlemen, patriotic soldiers and exemplary
Christians. I also spoke of the death of
Woodward, the guerilla chief. Friend
Mercer, of the Nashville Times, gives this despicable rascal, who in now
reaping the latter wages of his wretched life in the regions inhabited by the
congenial spirits of fallen angels and accursed rebels, the following notice:
“Woodward was born and raised in Hartford,
Connecticut, went a short time to West Point to school, was expelled, and soon
after fled to Kentucky in consequence of being engaged in a disgraceful
brawl. He eked out a miserable subsistence
by teaching a little country school, in which he met with poor success, being a
notorious vagabond, rowdy, liar and profligate drunkard. He often traveled
twenty miles to get up rows at circuses in country towns, in one of which
frolics he nearly lost his life by getting his head broken by a big clown. A short time before the rebellion broke out
he forged the name of one of his friends to a note for three hundred dollars,
and attempted to raise money on it.
Altogether he was a worthless dog, a personal, social and moral
nuisance. He was one of the best
representatives of the rebellion that we ever saw.”
…”Woodward, he whom the miserable,
hypocritical, and professedly loyal inhabitants of this place, have styled
divine, and over whose death they are weeping and mourning and indulging in
imprecations upon the heads of those who committed ‘the monstrous and enormous
crime’ of sending him to the place prepared for rebel angels, and specified in
the Living Book of the Living God, as the future abode of the living
participants in, the aiders and abettors of, and the sympathyzers with, the
most damnable rebellion waged against the glorious government of the United
States. Woodward was the God of this
people. Under him, though they now
profess to be loyal, and say ‘they never spoke a word’ or ‘performed an act’
favoring secession, many of them shouldered their guns and participated in the
capture of this place in August, 1862, and no doubt have frequently been with
him in his guerrillaing, thieving and murdering through the country. To Woodward the people of this place offer up
their praying and supplications, and to him many of them expect to go when they
die.”
Adam Clarke Higgins made it through
the war. He was more fortunate than many
of the men who enlisted to become part of the 83rd and history. At the close of the war he was mustered out
with the rank of “major.” After the war
he re-entered the ministry, married Lydia F. Ramsey of Rushville, Illinois in
1865, and was the shepherd for congregations in Illinois, Wisconsin, New Jersey
and New York City. Eventually adding a law degree to his divinity
degree, he moved to Chicago and practiced law there for 15 years. Civil War pension records note that he
applied for and received an invalid’s pension in August of 1890. Adam
C. Higgins was a past commander of the Winfield Scott Chapter of the Grand Army
of the Republic, and was also a member of the Improved Order of Red Men and the
Union Veteran Association. He had been
making preparations to move to Lincoln, Illinois, to share a law office with
his son, Charles. A. Higgins, when he died on March 25th, 1896 of
congestion of the stomach after a short illness. His death occurred at the home of his nephew
in Chicago, Lloyd Higgins.
The former Chaplain of the 83rd
Illinois had arranged to have his body shipped to Rushville, Illinois to be
buried in his wife’s family plot. There he rests, next to his beloved Lydia, in
the Rushville City Cemetery.
Bibliography
“Soldiers’ Correspondence to Galesburg & Knoxville
Newspapers, 1861-65” Transcribed by
Philip J. Reyburn, 2014.
“Find a Grave” Adam
Clarke Higgins Memorial.
Rushville Times, 1896
Adam Clarke Higgins obituary
Civil War pension records
No comments:
Post a Comment